































































































































































Class. _ 

Book.L _ 





COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




















PUTTER PERKINS 


« I 




NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN TO PLAY ALL DAY 


* • 














PUTTER PERKINS 


BY 

KENNETH BROWN 

»« 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

E. W. KEMBLE 

• 


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BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(tfbe &tbenrtbe $ress Cambrige 

1923 












COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY KENNETH BROWN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


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tEfje RtoersitJt Crests 

CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 


FEB 27 1923 


©CU698454 

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* t 


To L. B. R. BRIGGS 


Dear Mr. Briggs, 

Not very long after I left college I wrote a little book, and 
dedicated it to you. It was called “Contrariwise,” and spar¬ 
kled with the promise of youth, and contained that gem of mine, 
which you cannot have forgotten, “The Compressed Vacuum 
Pill.” ' 

Some day I may yet find a publisher who has courage to 
print it; but publishers are timid men, and all this time you 
have never known that I had written a book which I had ded¬ 
icated to you. 

“Putter Perkins,” a staid and scientific chronicle, has found 
more favor with the publishing men, and so I am dedicating it 
to you now in place of the little volume which still lies darkly 
sparkling in the bottom of my trunk — like a diamond undis¬ 
covered in the depths of a diamond mine. 

Kenneth Brown 










CONTENTS 


I. Three Injudicious Bets 

i 

II. The Match 

23 

III. Perry Perk makes Golf Pay 

43 

IV. Perry Perk meets Breitmann 

55 

V. Choice of Weapons 

93 

VI. Home Again 

115 


* I 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Nothing better to do than to play all day 

(page 12) Frontispiece 


He invented new stances, new grips 2 

Nosing swimmers in soft and ticklish 
spots 20 

Little Jimmy Daniels 30 

Picked up his ball and gave up the match 40 

The right hand on the stomach 46 

“l am the Chevalier Defense d’Afficher” 64 
At present he was in heaven 86 

“Golf balls he does not know also” 104 

“ACH! I AM DEADED” 112 


1 


« • 


PUTTER PERKINS 

• • 

• 

CHAPTER I 

THREE INJUDICIOUS BETS 

I 

This is a tale of prehistoric times, when all 
the world lived in a state of amicable bluff, 
when countries built navies and trained 
armies, and nobody — at least nobody out 
at the Medchester Country Club — believed 
there ever would be a war again; and so we 
were much more interested in such matters 
as a golf match between Sharpies, the sharp, 
and Bixby, the nervous, who could play 
rings around Sharpies except when the lat¬ 
ter managed to irritate him to the verge of 
frenzy. However, that story has been told 
elsewhere. 

This one concerns Peregrine Perkins — 
him we called “Perry Perk” before he be- 


2 


PUTTER PERKINS 


came famous as “Putter” Perkins. He was 
an ardent week-end golfer, and used to say 
that golf was all that saved him from being 
a crank. Everybody else said he was a 
crank, but then there’s no telling how much 
worse he might have been without golf. 

The bees in his bonnet were three, like the 
Napoleonic bees. They were wireless tor¬ 
pedoes (he was inventing one), the invasion 
of the United States by a foreign foe, and 
Claire Terhune. The last was pretty seri¬ 
ous, at least to a lot of the fellows at the 
club. The first two we considered harmless 
as collecting epitaphs off old tombstones. 
Torpedoes were things one read about in the 
newspapers as being tried out at Sandy 
Hook or somewhere, while, as for a possible 
invasion of America, we would to a man have 
sprung to arms with Bryan’s million men. 

But with Claire Terhune there was no 
springing to arms — not for Perry Perk. 
She was the club champion, and had been 



HE INVENTED NEW STANCES, NEW GRIPS 















PUTTER PERKINS 


3 


runner-up in the national championship, 
while he was the club dub, and the handi¬ 
cap limit had been especially raised so that 
he could have a look-in, when we had a little 
something up on the game. A cat may look 
at a king, but it would be preposterous for a 
twenty-four handicap man to cast aspiring 
glances at a lady champion. 

Whenever the two met on the links, Claire 
gave Perry a bright smile, but he could not 
even enjoy this ray of sunshine because of 
the torturing doubt whether she was smiling 
at him, or at his golf. He rarely saw her 
elsewhere because he was a hard-working 
boy, and when not relaxing at golf he was 
always busy with his inventing. 

By rights, too, Perry Perk ought to have 
been a good golfer. He was a loose-limbed, 
well-built chap with plenty of strength and 
dash. The trouble was that he could not 
keep from inventing even while playing: he 
invented new stances, and grips, and ways 


4 


PUTTER PERKINS 


of drawing back the club-head; new things 
to remember in the up-swing, and new 
things to do in the down. And, since his was 
a fertile mind, a Saturday rarely passed 
without his inventing some new fault to cor¬ 
rect an old one. 

McDivot, our pro, took him in hand once, 
and after an hour gave him up, with per¬ 
spiration streaming from every pore and his 
tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth — 
McDivot’s mouth, you understand. Perry 
was fresh as a daisy. He had argued every 
point with pertinacity and acumen. He had 
not taken a single swing as the pro wanted 
him to, but had illustrated his own methods 
with great freedom. 

“It would tak ? a professorr of logic to 
teach yon chap gowf,” McDivot gloomily 
observed, after he had managed to uncleave 
his tongue from the roof of his mouth, in 
a way commonly practiced in those ancient 
times. 


PUTTER PERKINS 


5 


n 

It seems a far cry from golf to wireless tor¬ 
pedoes; but in Perry Perk’s mind they re¬ 
sided cheek by jowl. While the juxtaposi¬ 
tion did his golf no good, it had no disastrous 
effect on his torpedo, which was rapidly 
reaching perfection. 

We are a big country, he would argue, 
with a tremendous coast-line, divided half 
east, half west, and the taxpayers would 
never stand for the expense of keeping a 
navy on each coast sufficiently strong to pro- 

i 

tect it against the designs of predatory na- 
tions, who might combine against us. But 
here was where he came in. 

“Wait just a few days longer till I’ve 
fully perfected my wireless torpedo, and I ’ll 
put a fringe of scorpions around God’s 
Country that will give a bad shock to any 
nation that tries to handle us without 
gloves.” 


6 


PUTTER PERKINS 


Occasionally Perry would talk in this 
strain at the clubhouse. Usually he talked 
golf, for he tried to put his torpedo out of his 
mind over Sunday. Moreover, he found lit¬ 
tle sympathetic attention for his theory of 
predatory nations annexing us. Those were 
the good old days when we had the future 
course of everything except the stock market 
pretty well doped out. The fellows would 
remark that Perry’s invasion might be some 
time coming, while the winning of their 
match at a ball a hole was a matter of pres¬ 
ent importance. 


in 

One Saturday night Perkins was sitting 
gloomily in the clubroom between a group 
of cross-country riders and a crowd of golf¬ 
ing enthusiasts. The horsemen were vehe¬ 
mently debating the question whether the 
breed of thoroughbreds would deteriorate, 
now that, for all practical purposes, except 


PUTTER PERKINS 


7 


racing, the horse’s place had been taken by 
machinery. The golfers had got on to the 
subject of Breitmann, the German professor, 
who had worked out a system of playing the 
game to music, and who went into tourna¬ 
ments with a fiddler and a trombone player 
at his back. Some ridiculed the whole story 
and believed it a hoax, like the Kupernick 
affair; while others considered the idea 
quite feasible, in view of the great part 
which rhythm and timing played in a stroke. 

Perhaps it was the cross-currents of con¬ 
versation that got on Perry’s nerves. Per¬ 
haps it was because he had received a state¬ 
ment from his bankers that morning, in¬ 
forming him that he had only a few thousand 
dollars left in the world. Or he may have 
been depressed by the consciousness that he 
had made his worst round of the year to-day, 
and had lost ten balls to Sharpies. 

Perry was one of the few men in the club 
to whom the loss of a dozen balls was a con- 


8 


PUTTER PERKINS 


sideration, and the men at Medchester by 
tacit consent kept the stakes low when play¬ 
ing with him. Sharpies alone would boost 
the betting, and, since he was even cleverer 
at making a match than at playing it, he 
usually won. During to-day’s game he had 
begun to talk about a mythical combina¬ 
tion of nations against the United States 
and the imperative need of some adequate 
defense, and the unsuspecting Perkins had 
fallen into the trap. His wits flew back to his 
invention, and he played his shots as he 
would brush away obtrusive flies. 

Sharpies’s ruse was the more effective 
since Perry’s torpedo was now an accom¬ 
plishment: the last technical difficulty had 
been surmounted: it was perfect. A few days 
before, he had written to the Secretary of 
the Navy inviting him to come to Medches¬ 
ter with his experts and see it working. 

At the tenth green the two men came 
within hailing distance of Claire Terhune on 


PUTTER PERKINS 


9 

the sixteenth tee, and for the moment even 
torpedoes were driven from Perry’s mind. 
Claire was tall, with a figure just made for 
golf, or riding, or tennis, or dancing, or al¬ 
most anything. She wore each of her smooth 
braids of brown hair in a sort of shield on 
either side of her head, after a fashion that 
was noticeable and becoming. Her features 
had a symmetry which really did not prove 
her more worthy than other maidens, though 
men thought so; while, as for her mouth, 
its shape made it far more precious than if 
pearls and rubies had dropped from her lips, 
like the lady in the fairy story. And her eyes 
of lustrous brown — a perfect match to her 
hair — had the power of piercing through 
the toughest hide to melt the heart beneath. 
There is more that might be said about 
Claire were this story primarily about her 
and not about Perry Perk, three injudicious 
bets he made, and all that resulted there¬ 
from. 


10 


PUTTER PERKINS 


IV 

“Well, how's the match?” Claire called 
cheerfully, as her caddie knelt rapt at her 
feet to tee up her ball. 

Perry had n't the faintest idea how he 
stood, but Sharpies chuckled as he answered: 

“Ten up, and eight to play.” 

“And who's ahead?” Claire asked in¬ 
nocently — an innocence a little overdone. 

Perry sank into mortification. There 
could now be no doubt what caused her to 
smile habitually at him when she met him 
on the links. 

“ I am,” Sharpies replied gleefully. “Shall 
we make it double or quits on the bye, 
Perkins?” 

“Thanks, no!” Perry replied, a flush of 
anger rising to his cheeks. He was no fool, 
though he might be a crank, and he discerned 
too late the reason for the turn his antagon¬ 
ist’s conversation had taken during the 


PUTTER PERKINS . 11 

match. “ I ’ve had enough golf for the day.” 
And, handing his putter to his caddie, he 
stalked back to the clubhouse. 

“Ought n’t to have waked him up so soon,” 
Sharpies admonished himself. “ If I’d talked 
a little more Peril-to-the-United-States, he’d 
have bet me anything I liked on the bye.” 

v 

This evening, between the horsemen and 
the golfers, Perry sat morosely brooding. 
Presently he caught his own name and looked 
around to find Sharpies giving a humorous 
and highly colored account of their match of 
the afternoon, and bragging of the number of 
balls his conversation on foreign-nations- 
attacking-America had been worth to him. 
Now Peregrine Perkins was a pleasant- 
tempered young man, and it was usually 
safe to crack any joke at his expense; but 
to-night he was sore at the whole world and 
sorest of all at Sharpies. Sharpies had cer- 


12 


PUTTER PERKINS 


tain qualities which made men hate to be 
beaten by him more than by any other man 
in the club. 

Perry scowled. Then his eyes suddenly 
narrowed, and a look of intense concentration 
came into his face. “Yes,” he muttered, 
“it could be done.” It was as if he had for¬ 
gotten the grinning raconteur; but that he 
had not was proved by his next words. 

“Damn it all, Sharpies,” he burst forth, 
“just because a big oaf like you has nothing 
better to do than to play all day, you think 
you’re mighty smart because you can do it 
well. If I really cared to devote my scien¬ 
tific mind to making a little ball go from the 
tee to the hole, I could beat you so badly 
you’d never want to play anything again 
except tiddle-de-winks.” 

“Hear! hear!” cried little Jimmie Daniels. 

“Talk’s mighty cheap,” Sharpies sneered. 
“I’ll bet you—” 


PUTTER PERKINS 


l 3 


VI 

Just then one of the club stewards brought 
Perry a long white envelope without a stamp 
and with the notice printed in the upper 
right-hand corner that there was $300 fine 
for using it for other than official busi¬ 
ness. 

Without a word of apology to those 
present, Perry tore open the envelope, with 
fingers he could not keep from trembling. 
Here was the letter that would enable him 
to realize his life’s ambition. It was from 
the Navy Department, quite short, and in¬ 
formed him in politely supercilious language 
that the Government had fully provided for 
the protection of the American coast-line, 
and regretted to be unable to utilize Mr. 
Perkins’s wireless torpedo. 

Perry had known vaguely that there 
might be practical difficulties to surmount in 
getting his torpedo adopted by the Govern- 


PUTTER PERKINS 


H 

ment. He had never imagined that it might 
not be considered even worth investigating. 
And he could not afford to bide his time; for 
he was nearly at the end of his resources. He 
had placed such hopes on his torpedo that 
the rapid melting away of his fortune had 
seemed of no importance, so long as his tor¬ 
pedo was perfected before the end of his 
money was reached. Now his impending 
bankruptcy stared him in the face as an aw¬ 
ful calamity, both for himself and for the 
American Nation he was trying to serve. 

VII 

Into his numbing disappointment the insist¬ 
ent, jeering voice of Sharpies gradually 
wormed its way. The latter was still harp¬ 
ing on his petty theme of odds and strokes 
and handicap, while Perry had been con¬ 
cerned with matters of vast importance — 
the future safety of his country, the preser¬ 
vation of the American ideal, of civilization 


PUTTER PERKINS 


15 

itself, perhaps — not to mention the subject 
of his own poverty. 

Roused at last, a cold, calculating glare 
came into the inventor’s eyes. 

“ All right, Sharpies,” he said, turning on 
his tormentor, “I guess I do play a pretty 
rotten game of golf, but what will you bet me 
that I can’t beat you a month from to-day, 
by applying science to this little game of 
yours?” 

“Apply all the science you want,” Shar¬ 
pies replied airily, “ and I ’ll bet you — well 
— a tenner on it.” 

He ended on a note of caution. Being a 
four-handicap man he would have to give 
Perry three fourths the difference between 
four and twenty-four. With fifteen strokes, 
the latter stood a fair chance of winning, 
provided he played golf and not world poli¬ 
tics. 

“That’s under handicap, of course?” 
Perry observed. 


i6 


PUTTER PERKINS 


“You didn’t imagine I thought you 
would play me even, did you?” Sharpies 
laughed unpleasantly. 

“H’m! Just make a note of it. Now, 
what odds will you give that you can beat 
me with only eight strokes handicap?” 

Sharpies brightened visibly. He liked this 
sort of a bet. 

“ I ’ll give you a hundred to twenty.” 

“ Make it a thousand to two hundred, and 
you’re on,” Perry said coolly. 

Sharpies stared at him, and Kerstaw, 
M.F.H. of the Medchester Hunt, who had 
been drawn from the horse group to the golf¬ 
ing group by something electrical in the air, 
grabbed Perkins’s arm. 

“Perky, old man, how many cocktails 
have you had to-night? You don’t want to 
make any such fool bet as that.” 

But Sharpies, fearing lest the opportunity 
might slip from him, cried, “Done!” 

Rather roughly Perry shook off Kerstaw’s 


PUTTER PERKINS 


l 7 

friendly hand, and continued, with no sign 
that he lived anywhere near the cocktail belt 
of Medchester: 

“And now what are the odds that, with 
the help of my science, I can’t beat you with¬ 
out any handicap at all?” 

This was too much. In spite of the rebuff 
Kerstaw had just received, little Jimmy 
Daniels could not sit quietly by and see an 
innocent robbed in this way. 

“ Perry Perk, you ’ve got torpedoes in your 
north pole! Don’t listen to him, Sharpies. 
Now, if you want a sporting proposition, 
I’ll — ” 

“What are the odds that I don’t beat you 
even?” Perry repeated imperturbably. 

“Oh! most anything you like,” Sharpies 
replied, trying to conceal his eagerness. 
“ Say ten to one.” 

“Five thousand to five hundred?” 

“Sure thing!” 

“All right. It’s a go. And now I’ll say 
good-night to you alt” 


i8 


PUTTER PERKINS 


Perry rose and stalked from the room and 
the clubhouse. 


VIII 

Some years before, Peregrine Perkins had in¬ 
herited a modest fortune from his father. 
From then on he had thrown himself and his 
money into his invention unreservedly, and 
the torpedo had absorbed his money with 
speed. (To those who do not know, it may 
be said that a wireless torpedo is more ex¬ 
pensive in its tastes than a gentleman-farm.) 
Perry’s little house stood on a retired lane, be¬ 
side a big pond. There he lived and worked, 
a capable old negro mammy looking after 
his wants. It was fortunate that Aunt Cas- 
sie appreciated to the full the importance 
of her duties; for, when Perry became im¬ 
mersed in his inventioning, it required more 
than the clock to make him remember to eat 
or to sleep. 

Aunt Cassie would bring his food into his 


PUTTER PERKINS 


l 9 

workshop on a tray, take up a big wooden 
mallet and pound. On one occasion, when he 
had been particularly oblivious to the claims 
of the flesh, Aunt Cassie lost all patience and 
pounded the model of his invention. This 
made such an impression on Perry, and on 
the model, that the first stroke of the mallet 
commanded his instant attention ever after. 

His little house was lighted with electric¬ 
ity. Aunt Cassie insisted on having a cen¬ 
tral switch in the kitchen. At the time she 
deemed proper for Marse Perry to go to bed, 
she turned the switch. There were no lamps 
or candles, so that, after the switch was 
turned, it was impossible for him to con¬ 
tinue his work. 

The pond in front of his house had been 
a favorite swimming resort for the boys of 
Medchester, but, after Perry’s invention 
proceeded to a certain stage, it gradually 
lost its popularity. One never could tell 
when a torpedo would rise noiselessly from 


20 PUTTER PERKINS 

the bottom of the pond. It had a pointed 
end, and when it caught one suddenly in the 
small of the back, one forgot for the moment 
that it was n’t loaded. In its early stages 
Perry did not have it under proper control, 
and it was liable to rampage around pretty 
much as it pleased; and it seemed to have a 
natural propensity for nosing swimmers in 
soft and ticklish spots. Gradually the pond 
came to have a bad name. Few people ever 
trod its shores except stray tramps, and, 
after the torpedo slid its nose out of the 
water and took a good look at them, they 
usually went away, too. 

IX 

On this night, upon leaving the clubhouse, 
Perry strode along and savagely addressed 
the mild atmosphere of Medchester. 

“Oh, you blind and self-satisfied America, 
more interested in your sports than in your 
national existence! Because a lenient fate 



NOSING SWIMMERS IN SOFT AND TICKLISH SPOTS 










































i» 


PUTTER PERKINS 


21 


has given you freedom from outside interfer¬ 
ence for a hundred years, you think you are 
as safe from the world’s enmity as when men 
sailed in wooden ships and trusted to the 
capricious winds to blow them to their 
journey’s ends. And I who could render you 
immune from foreign invasion — me you 
flout and despise because my handicap is 
twenty-four at a foolish game in which any 
silly ass may excel. And a crassly ignorant, 
demagogic Government writes me sarcastic 
letters that they have not time to investi¬ 
gate my ‘certainly novel’ scheme for safe¬ 
guarding our coasts. If I were a golf cham¬ 
pion, they would not dismiss me thus. The 
papers would give me scareheads: ‘Perkins, 
Golf Champion, Invents Wireless Torpedo. 
Experts at Washington Much Interested,’ 
and then a column of misinformation by 
some chap who could n’t tell a wireless tor¬ 
pedo from a seedless raisin.” 

Perry tramped to his home, made his way 


22 


PUTTER PERKINS 


to his room in the dark, and paced up and 
down, barking his shins against each piece 
of furniture in turn. He had stayed late at 
the club, and Aunt Cassie had retired and 
cut off the light. 

‘‘But since my country cares for nothing 
except futile things, I ’ll turn my talents into 
a channel it appreciates,” he ended in a 
fierce outburst, and went to bed. 


CHAPTER II 

THE MATCH 
I 

One month later, when his match with 
Sharpies came off, Peregrine Perkins was 
quite his old cheerful self. In the interim he 
had worked harder than ever in his work¬ 
shop. He had practiced little golf, and that 
little in the early morning by himself. 

Bixby offered to coach him a bit. 

“I certainly appreciate your kindness,’’ 
Perry replied, “but I’ve an idea I can work 
out my game best by myself. I don’t play 
in orthodox form, you know.’’ 

“I know,” Bixby solemnly assented. 
“You don’t.” 


II 

A good-natured, chaffing, pitying crowd 
gathered at the first tee to see the con- 


PUTTER PERKINS 


2 4 

testants drive off. There were petticoats 
among the knickers, and Perry gave a slight 
gasp as he noticed one he had hoped and 
feared might be absent. 

It was a warm day, and Sharpies, in a 
tennis suit, collar open, and sleeves rolled 
up, took his place on the tee, cool and su¬ 
premely confident. As low handicap man 
he had the honor and drove a good ball 
straight down the course. 

Perry wore not only a coat, but a waist¬ 
coat as well, fastened with odd, shiny metal 
buttons, and the pockets of his coat bulged 
and sagged. 

“Carrying along plenty of golf balls? 
That’s right,” Sharpies observed conde¬ 
scendingly. “I suppose you will take the 
zigzag route as usual, and it’s easy to lose 
balls in the rough just now.” 

Perry did not reply. Carefully teeing up 
his ball, he faced around to the left, at an 
angle of forty-five degrees, to allow for his 


PUTTER PERKINS 


25 


customary slice. He drew back his club, 
brought it down with a vicious swipe and as 
the ball flew from the tee, his right hand 
loosened its hold of the driver and was 
clapped to the pit of his stomach, as if he 
were in pain — as any golfer might be at 
such a slice. Yet, had all eyes not been 
focused upon the curving ball, they might 
have noticed that this was no chance atti¬ 
tude of Perry’s, and that each of his four 
Angers rested upon a different one of the 
shiny metal buttons of his waistcoat. 

As for his ball it looked at first as if it 
would certainly be lost in the rough to the 
left; then it swooped around and made 
straight for the long grass bordering the 
fairway on the right. Just before reaching 
it, it stopped. It did not slow down gradu¬ 
ally and trickle to rest as most golf balls do, 
but stopped as if it had come against some 
invisible obstacle. 

“By Jove! that’s the only ball I ever saw 



26 


PUTTER PERKINS 


that might have been lost in the rough on 
both sides of the course at once,” Bixby 
cried admiringly. 

Perry usually drove between one hundred 
and forty and one hundred and fifty yards, 
with luck. To-day in spite of its devious 
course, his ball rested nearer to the hole 
than Sharpies’s excellent drive. The gallery 
could hardly believe it. All of them knew 
the deleterious effect of a slice on distance, 
and all trooped along with the players to 
make sure their eyes had not deceived them. 
Anyway, they might as well see out the first 
hole before beginning their own games. 
Few of them proposed to grace the foregone 
conclusion of Sharpies’s victory with their 
presence. 

“ You ’re becoming a mighty swiper, Perk,” 
shouted Kerstaw, slapping him on the back. 
“ Keep it up and you ’ll get Sharpies’s nerve.” 
This was more a hope than a belief; besides, 
what Kerstaw did n’t know about golf was 


PUTTER PERKINS 


2 7 

as extensive as what he did know about 
hunting. 

The first hole was three hundred and 
ninety-seven yards long, a fairly hard five, 
since it ran up a steep little valley with the 
green a good many feet higher than the 
tee. 

Sharpies’s drive lay just opposite the 
two-hundred-yard mark; and Perry’s ball 
was a good forty yards farther, within a foot 
of the rough. 

Sharpies took his brassie for the one hun¬ 
dred and ninety-seven yards of uphill before 
him, but he pressed a bit, sclaffed his shot, 
and half-topped his ball. It rose quickly, 
then ducked and ran along the ground like 
a scared rabbit, eventually stopping fifty 
yards short of the green. 

“ Lucky for you the ground was hard or 
you would n’t have got halfway there,” 
growled Jimmy Daniels, who begrudged 
Sharpies any luck. 


28 


PUTTER PERKINS 


Perry studied his ball and the undulations 
of the ground before him carefully. 

“My putter would be safest,” he mur¬ 
mured. 

“Oh, take your brassie,” Claire Terhune 
breathed imploringly. 

“Did n’t you know I had no right to ac¬ 
cept advice from any one except my caddie? ” 
Perry asked in mild reproof. 

The gallery was stunned. To think of a 
dub venturing to quote rules to a champ. 

The caddie drew the brassie from the bag. 

V. 

Ferry shook his head. “Putter!” he said 
firmly. “My goose-necked putter.” 

“Goose-necked idiot!” muttered Bixby in 
disgust, while the other spectators chuckled. 
But, when they realized that he actually 
proposed to use it, they shared Bixby’s dis¬ 
gust. Only golfing etiquette prevented their 
walking away even while he was playing his 
ridiculous shot. 

Undisturbed by the disapproval of the 


PUTTER PERKINS 


29 


gallery, Perry drew back his putter, made a 
quick jerky shot toward the far distant 
green, and then stood as before, holding his 
putter in his left hand and pressing his right 
to his stomach. 

The ball leaped away from his club in a 
short flight and began to roll toward the 
hole. The ground must be hard indeed to¬ 
day, for it seemed as if the little white sphere 
would never stop. It hopped along, swerv¬ 
ing from side to side according to the undu¬ 
lations of the ground, but in general keeping 
straight for the green. Up the incline it 
sped, seeming not to slacken its pace at all, 
and disappeared over the brow of the hill on 
the very green itself. 


in 

The gallery stood dumbfounded. Each man 
gazed at his neighbor to discover whether he 
were dreaming or not. 

“Oh, goody!” cried a feminine voice, 


PUTTER PERKINS 


3 ° 

moved even out of golf language by the 
shot. 

“Well!” burst from little Jimmy Daniels, 
“it did n’t have any wings, but such legs on 
a ball I never saw in all my life.” 

Perry gave a pleased smile. “ On in two,” 
he remarked. 

Terhune rushed up and grabbed his arm. 
Bill prided himself on his length. So long as 
his ball flew far, he did n’t much care in what 
direction it went, but even he was rarely 
green high on this first hole. 

“Perry Perk, how did you do it?” he im¬ 
plored. 

“ Brains,” Perry replied easily. “ I told you 
that, if I cared to devote my scientific mind 
to golf, I could make you all look like thirty 
cents. I have n’t quite mastered my driver 
yet, but my putter seems to work all right.” 

“Putter!” Bixby groaned; “why, you 
did n’t even hit the ball hard.” 

“Not very,” Perry agreed. He held up 


LITTLE JIMMY DANIELS 




























































PUTTER PERKINS 


3 1 

his wrists and gazed at them thoughtfully. 
They were strong, supple wrists. “It’s a 
matter of — of follow through, you know. 
Only there is this difference between us: you 
put the follow through into your arms, 
while I put it into the ball.” 

He looked so owlishly wise as he spoke 
that the crowd was dazed. What he said 
would have been hooted at as arrant non¬ 
sense if he had n’t just made the shot he 
had. So interested were all in Perry’s shoot¬ 
ing that they forgot Sharpies altogether and 
were making for the green, until he acridly 
asked them kindly to wait until he had 
played his third. 

A fine running-up shot with his iron laid 
his ball six feet from the pin, and he holed 
out for a half with Perry, who took two puts. 

IV 

The second hole was a peculiar one, com¬ 
plained of by many, and yet the pride of the 


PUTTER PERKINS 


32 

greens committee. It was one hundred and 
ninety yards long with no difficulty except 
a wide sand bunker just short of the green, 
its farther side composed of a bank of rail¬ 
road ties sloping up at an angle of forty-five 
degrees from the sand to the green. 

The long swipers of the club had fre¬ 
quently wished to have this changed. They 
could not resist the temptation to try to 
carry the green, and almost invariably they 
would either come to rest in the soft and 
yielding white sand, which had cost the club 
a pretty penny to import from the seaside, 
or else their ball would strike against the 
railroad ties, leap high in air, and fall back 
into the bunker they had almost escaped. 

But to all remonstrances the greens com¬ 
mittee turned a deaf ear. An obstacle that 
every one could see, they contended, rightly, 
was perfectly legitimate. If the long swipers 
could n’t make the green, let them take an 
iron and play short. 


PUTTER PERKINS 33 

Sharpies followed this excellent advice. 
With a midiron he laid his ball twenty yards 
short of the sand, a chip-shot from the 
pin. 

Perry took his driver. Unless he perpe¬ 
trated another miracle shot, there was little 
danger of his reaching the bunker on his 
drive. He studied the hole with minutest 
care; altered his stance three times, and his 
grip twice. Unfortunately he also glanced 
once at Claire Terhune, and he overreached 
a fatal fraction of an inch, caught the ball 
under the heel of his club, and it darted 
nearly at right angles into the rough. As it 
disappeared, he made a frantic clutch at his 
waistcoat, as if seized with sudden agony. 

"Too late!” he muttered. 

All trooped over to hunt for the ball, 
which was quickly found. It did not lie 
badly, although surrounded by thinnish tall 
grass. 

“Mebby you can get it out in one,” his 


PUTTER PERKINS 


34 

caddie remarked hopefully, and handed him 
his niblick. 

Perry waved him away. He studied his 
lie and the line to the green as carefully as if 
he hoped to hole his next. 

“It might be done,” he said under his 
breath. “Boy, give me my putter.” 

“ Putter, sir? ” The caddie’s jaw dropped. 
“You mean your niblick.” 

“Putter,” Perry repeated, and fished it 
out of his bag himself. 

“Well, this is the limit!” Bill Terhune re¬ 
marked to the world in general. 

The gallery largely lost its sympathy for 
Perry. Such a fool deserved to have his 
money taken away from him. 

Entirely undisturbed, Perry drew back 
his club and made the same kind of a pains¬ 
taking push-shot he had made with his 
putter on the first hole. 

The ball did n’t rise an inch — nobody ex¬ 
pected it to. Instead it plunged into the 


PUTTER PERKINS 


35 

grass like an ambitious spaniel retrieving 
a duck. It whirred through the long grass 
and actually came out on the fairway, still 
rolling. 

“Well out!” cried the gallery, forgetting 
its disgust of a moment before. And well out 
it certainly was. The grass seemed not to 
have slowed it up in the least. On and on it 
rolled. It came up to Sharpies’s ball, and 
then amid a groan of disappointment from 
the onlookers, kept on into the bunker. 

v 

But what was this? While all still gazed 
mournfully after the vanished ball, it re¬ 
appeared, running swiftly up the railroad 
ties, and came to rest on the very green itself. 

Sharpies gasped, and even Bixby shook 
his head reprovingly. 

“That’s too much, Perry Perk,” he ad¬ 
monished. “Was it a putter you perpe¬ 
trated that with?” 


PUTTER PERKINS 


36 

“Yes,” Perry replied, gazing down at it 
in modest pride; “I did it with my little 
putter.” 

No wonder that after this Sharpies missed 
his chip-shot, and topped it straight into 
the sand. It was enough to get on any man’s 
nerves. 

The next hole was a difficult one of three 
hundred and ninety-one yards. One’s drive 
had the whole field to rest in — slice or 
pull; but the second shot was between a 
narrow lane of trees. Perry led off with his 
usual rainbow slice, of fair length. Sharpies, 
driving desperately, sent a long straight ball 
a full two hundred and fifty yards away. 
He smiled grimly: here he would square the 
match and then walk-away from his oppo¬ 
nent. 

For his second shot Perry first took from 
his bag his putter, and, in spite of his re¬ 
cent exhibition of its powers, every one felt 
relieved when he handed it back to his 



PUTTER PERKINS 


37 


caddie and said, “No, give me my brassie.” 
With this he faced around to the forbidding 
line of tall trees to the left, to allow for his 
slice. 

“He’s cutting it a leelle too fine,” Bixby 
remarked in an undertone to Kerstaw, and 
so it proved. 

The ball started off at a good pace, but 
before the slice had time to take effect it 
disappeared into the tree-tops. 

In the still air they could hear the ball 
hurtling through the leaves and striking the 
branches. 

“Gone to earth!’’ groaned Jimmy Dan¬ 
iels. “Here ends Perky’s career. It was too 
good to last. . . Hold on! Look! Yonder 
she goes!” 

Sure enough the ball had come curving 
out of the trees, its slice still in fine working 
order and its distance not at all impaired by 
its devious course. 

“I swear, that is too much!’’ Sharpies 


38 PUTTER PERKINS 

expostulated angrily, and for the first time 
the crowd at Medchester did feel some sym¬ 
pathy for him. 

“ Sorry, Sharpies,” Perry soothed men¬ 
daciously. “I was just thinking about my 
torpedo, and I may unconsciously have put 
on a little extra steam.” 

Sharpies glared and the gallery grinned, 
the allusion not lost on either. Instead of 
winning the hole, as he had confidently ex¬ 
pected to, he lost it and stood two down. 

VI 

The spectators had forgotten all about their 
intention of turning back. Such a match had 
never been seen before. It proceeded with 
varying fortunes; for, to do the black- 
browed Sharpies justice, he was a hard man 
to beat: sure two-put man on the green, and 
never conceding his opponent anything. 
Perry’s play was erratic, as it had always 
been, but interspersed with so many prepos- 


PUTTER PERKINS 39 

terous shots that it would have taken the 
heart out of any man. 

“Have you noticed one thing,” Claire 
whispered to Jimmy Daniels, “he’s hole 
high on his second every time, and yet he 
has n’t overrun the green once.” 

Others had observed the same thing. 
While he had little control over the direction 
of his ball, his distance was invariably per¬ 
fect. Whenever he was in a tight place, no 
matter how far distant from the hole, he 
turned to his putter, for with it he did seem 
to have an idea of direction. It was Jimmy 
Daniels christened him “Putter” Perkins 
when, being dormie on the eighteenth tee, 
he actually took his putter for the drive on 
a five-hundred-and-thirty-seven-yard hole, 
and brought off such a screamer that 
Sharpies, after foozling his own drive and 
second, picked up his ball and gave up the 
match. 

Claire Terhune was the first to congrat¬ 
ulate him on his victory. 


40 


PUTTER PERKINS 


“Oh! I’m so glad you won,” she cried. 
“We were so afraid you might only win the 
ten-dollar bet, and lose the others. It was 
perfectly splendid. You must devote more 
time to golf, now that you have shown what 
you can do.” 

“I’m thinking of going in for it pretty ex¬ 
tensively, this summer,” Perry replied mod¬ 
estly. 

“ It is nicer than old torpedoes, don’t you 
think?” she asked, making a little face at 
the latter. 

“It seems to be more appreciated,” he 
admitted ruefully. 

“Torpedoes may be useful and all that, but 
they are n’t golf, are they?” Then, fearing 
lest she had hurt his feelings, Claire went 
on quickly: “Not that they aren’t really 
very nice. I always thought if I could have a 
tame one to carry me on its back when I was 
bathing, like a dolphin, it would be the 
grandest thing.” 



PICKED UP HIS BALL AND GAVE UP THE MATCH 

































PUTTER PERKINS 


4i 


“Would you like one? I ’ll make you one,” 
Perry said eagerly. 

“Oh, that would be wonderful! But where 
could I keep it? There’s only room for two 
cars in our garage. Anyway, we’re going 
to the mountains this summer — and I’d 
rather have you go in and win the club 
championship. I believe you can.” 

It thrilled him to have her care about his 
winning. 

“I’ll do it!” he declared. “I’m going to 
get out of golf all there is in it, this sum¬ 
mer.” 


VII 

When he was walking back to his little 
house beside the pond, he took a golf ball 
out of his pocket and regarded it thought¬ 
fully. 

“I wish it did n’t have to be round,” he 
murmured. “I can manage the distance, 
but the direction bothers me. Now, if they 


PUTTER PERKINS 


42 

would let me use a cigar-shaped ball — 
There’s nothing in the rules against it — 
No, they’d be sure to make a rule. I ’ll have 
to do the best I can with this.” 

He put it back into his pocket, and pro¬ 
ceeded to the boat-house, where his torpedo 
lay lolling half out of the water like some 
amphibious monster. 

“I’ll have to desert you for a while, old 
chap,” he said sadly to the huge sinister 
thing. “It’s golf for me until I can make a 
for both of us.” 


name 


CHAPTER III 

PERRY PERK MAKES GOLF PAY 

I 

Peregrine Perkins saw his name in the 
headlines of a newspaper for the first time 
two weeks later when he won the Med- 
chester club championship against Bixby. 
The reporter sent out to cover the assign¬ 
ment was an ex-prize-fight-reporter, and the 
idea came to him to treat the event without 
mitts. Perry’s style of play encouraged pic¬ 
turesque language, and he turned out a col¬ 
umn of skyrockety journalese that tickled 
the fancy of the city editor. 

“Make those Medchester swells sit up,” 
he chuckled, as he topped off the report with 
a scarehead. 

Perry Perk read the paper with a grin of 
satisfaction. “Getting there already,” he 


PUTTER PERKINS 


44 

muttered. “ I ’ll give ’em more to talk about 
before I’m through.” 

He was as good as his word. If his golf 
was a nine days’ wonder at Medchester, it 
burst upon the larger golfing world like a 
comet. He went from one tournament to an¬ 
other and won every one of them — won 
them wearing his old baggy coat, wearing 
his waistcoat with its shiny metal buttons, 
no matter how hot the weather was. And al¬ 
ways did his right hand forsake the shaft of 
his club and fly to his waistcoat, “like he 
was trying to play the flute on his tummy, 
in imitation of Breitmann, the musical 
German golfer,” as one irreverent sporting 
reporter wrote of him. 

In the discussion which raged fiercely 
about him and his play, his clothes occupied 
a prominent place. The English press, 
which first scoffed at this new golfing genius, 
ended by pointing jubilantly to him as 
proof positive that England was right in 


PUTTER PERKINS 45 

the perennial question of shirt-sleeves versus 
coat. 

‘‘This new American phenomenon,” they 
declared, ‘‘could never have attained his 
preeminence in the States had he not 
adopted the English custom of playing in 
his coat.” 


II 

On that bitter night when he had received 
the Government’s curt epistle and had made 
his wagers with Sharpies, Perry had prom¬ 
ised himself to levy tribute on his coun¬ 
trymen, to enable him to carry on his work 
for their safety, since they themselves were 
so wrapped up in sport and money-making 
that they could not see any need for na¬ 
tional defense. And levy tribute he did. 
Wherever he went, he was willing to back 
himself against the leading players for con¬ 
siderable sums of money, and his style of 
play continually tempted wealthy amateurs 


46 PUTTER PERKINS 

to bet that they could beat him. The nest- 
egg he had won from Sharpies grew week by 
week. 

As his fame waxed, he discovered that 
there were other, unexpected sources of in¬ 
come opening up to him. He had bought his 
now renowned golf suit ready-made from a 
large shop in town. The head of this clothing 
establishment, himself a golfer, and a keen 
business man, wrote to Perkins offering him 
a thousand dollars down and a royalty of a 
dollar on every suit if he would permit the 
firm to name the suit after him “The 
Putter Perkins Golf Suit,” and to advertise 
it as that in which he was winning his sensa¬ 
tional series of tournaments. 

Perry accepted the offer without shame. 

Next the Sporting Trust made him an 
even better offer for the right to make a set 
of clubs to be called “The Putter Perkins 
Clubs.” Among these was a driver guaran¬ 
teed to give the identical slice with which his 



THE RIGHT HAND ON THE STOMACH 


















PUTTER PERKINS, 


47 

ball left the tee, whenever he used his driver. 
It may be mentioned in passing that these 
clubs attained great popularity — especially 
the driver, which, owing to the curious per¬ 
versity of golf, was found to cure even the 
most inveterate of sheers, and to send a per¬ 
fectly straight ball. 

Several of the popular magazines wrote 
to Perry to ask his terms for articles on golf, 
and his brazen demand for a thousand dol¬ 
lars apiece was acceded to without a murmur. 

A regular school of golfers — though from 
these he derived no direct pecuniary bene¬ 
fit — arose in imitation of him. They not 
only copied his clothes and his stance, but 
his odd movement at the end of every 
shot. The right hand on the stomach, they 
said, insured a perfect balance. They were 
as good as any other school of freak golfers: 
their scores were not appreciably worse than 
before, while their conversational range was 
considerably widened. 




48 PUTTER PERKINS 

As for “Putter’* Perkins himself, he con¬ 
tinued on his triumphal career, and rounded 
out a phenomenally successful season by win¬ 
ning the Amateur Championship with ease. 

hi 

His name had now become a household 
word from New York to San Francisco. 
Still he was troubled with doubts. “Have 
I done enough?” he asked himself, as the 
winter closed in and the public forgot golf 
for six-day bicycle races and the opera. 
“Have I attained a sufficient height, or must 
I conquer yet other worlds before my ideas 
will have the weight I wish them to have 
with my countrymen?” 

To this problem he gave his most earnest 
attention. He tabulated the relative amount 
of space devoted by six representative news¬ 
papers to him, to the remarks of major team 
baseball magnates, and to the utterances 
of the Secretary of State. He plotted these 


PUTTER PERKINS 


49 

statistics on a chart, and from it decided 
that, to attain to the position of impor¬ 
tance and authority he coveted, he must, 
like a prima donna, become an international 
celebrity before he would be appreciated at 
home. This meant that he must conquer 
the little cynical, scoffing island across the 
ocean, which, in golf at least, had managed 
to retain its preeminence almost unimpaired 
up to that time. 

The wisdom of Perry’s decision was 
proved by the instant response in the news¬ 
papers to his announcement that he was 
going over to take part in the British cham¬ 
pionships. His partial winter eclipse came to 
an end, and he again began to read columns 
of speculation and forecast about himself. 
If there is one thing which arouses popular 
interest in the United States, it is an ath¬ 
letic contest with England. 

Perry sailed on the same steamer with 
Roosevelt on his last round-the-world trip, 


PUTTER PERKINS 


5° 

and as our former President listened to the 
cheers from the dock — cheers for “ Putter ” 
Perkins, not for him — he realized at last 
the mistake he had made in sticking to big- 
game shooting and tennis, when he might 
have become a golfer. 

IV 

The British people welcomed Perry with 
wide-open arms — at least as wide as Na¬ 
ture permits an Englishman’s arms to open 
to a stranger — and in pretended perturba¬ 
tion exclaimed, 

“ I say, I expect we shan’t be able to hold 
you at all, you know!” 

And a great and sudden gloom fell upon 
the country when their words of modest 
self-depreciation turned out to be true, and 
after a number of close matches Perry won 
the Amateur Championship. 

“Won it with his putter, as that beggar 
Travis did, by Jove! But fahncy his taking 



PUTTER PERKINS 


5i 

his putter from the tee!” And they derived 
a certain amount of satisfaction from the 
knowledge that their cracks — whatever 
might be the outcome of their matches — 
never drove off with a goose-necked putter, 
as Perry sometimes was constrained to do 
when very hard-pressed. 

Yet in spite of his success a depression 
settled upon Perry Perk which he could not 
shake off. At Medchester, unknown and 
working away all day upon his torpedo, and 
worshiping Claire Terhune from afar, he had 
been as cheerful a soul as you would care to 
know. Now, with the golfers of two nations 
at his feet, and the name of “ Putter” Per¬ 
kins grown so great that no newspaper ever 
thought of putting “Mr.” before it, with 
prizes dropping into his lap in shoals, and his 
bank account waxing day by day, a deep 
melancholy came upon him. 

The English press noted his “dour con¬ 
centration,” as they called it, and com- 


PUTTER PERKINS 


52 

mented on it variously. Some tried to lash 
the English to a realization of the national 
disgrace of permitting Americans to win 
even this last stronghold of sport. “ Eng¬ 
lishmen must not take their games so lightly. 
Never could Great Britain,” they cried, 
“hope to regain her premier position until 
she regarded sport seriously, as the Ameri¬ 
cans did. Their players must be under strict 
training, as the Americans were. Sport must 
be reduced to a business, as it was in Amer- 

• _ f 1 

ica. 

Another section of the press, with aristo¬ 
cratic, public-school leanings, congratulated 
themselves that they had not yet sunk to 
the level of Americans in making of sport a 
business. English gentlemen, they thanked 
their stars, did not devote their whole ex¬ 
istence to winning, as the Americans did. 
From a purely golfing point of view, it might 
be satisfactory to produce such a phenome¬ 
non as this “Putter” Perkins, who had no 


PUTTER PERKINS 


53 

other thought in life than golf; but for their 
part they were thankful that the fine old 
breed of English gentlemen still regarded 
golf as secondary to their afternoon tea, 
and did not make the winning of games the 
sole reason of existence, as the Americans 
did. 


v 

Immersed in his own gloomy thoughts, the 
time passed slowly for Perry between the 
Amateur and the Open Championship. 
Great Britain had not given up hope of 
retaining this, the highest goal to which 
a golfer can aspire. Against the American 
the United Kingdom marshaled her best: 
Vardon, the Great; Braid, the long-armed 
smiter; Taylor, the short and chunky wizard 
of the mashie; Ray, the imperturbable; 
Duncan, of the lightning swing. She even 
called upon the Entente, and Massie, with 
two lesser Frenchmen, stood shoulder to 


PUTTER PERKINS 


54 

shoulder with the great English and Scotch, 
all mustered to crush the Yankee upstart. 

Yet — not to keep the reader on tenter¬ 
hooks — Peregrine Perkins won again. It 
was a neck-and-neck finish. He won by one 
stroke, Braid, Vardon, and Taylor tied for 
second; and, again one stroke behind them, 
Massie, Ray, and Duncan. They had to 
bring in the constabulary to manage the 
crowds which were attracted to Hoy lake, 
and the contest was only decided on the last 
green. 

“Now,” muttered Perry to himself, as he 
straightened up after his final putt, “that 
ought to make them sit up.” 

“Them” referred to certain persons in au¬ 
thority in his own land who had refused to 
pay any attention to his wireless torpedo. 


CHAPTER IV 

PERRY PERK MEETS BREITMANN 

I 

Perry was about to return to America 
when a small but distinguished deputation 
of golfers called upon him in his hotel to 
make a peculiar request of him. 

John Ball, Hilton, and Hutchinson sent 
up their cards, and when Perry appeared 
the eldest as spokesman for the three burst 
forth impetuously: 

“For God’s sake, Perkins, before you go 
back to the States, run over to Germany and 
take a fall out of that musical champion of 
theirs. He’s been bragging that he could beat 
the best of us, if we did n’t rule his musi¬ 
cians off our links, until we’re sick of it.” 

“As a matter of fact, he’s done it,” 
Hilton broke in. “We get so put off by his 


56 PUTTER PERKINS 

confounded tunes that we invariably crack. 
I slipped over there myself—” He shook 
his head gloomily. 

'‘You can do the trick,” Ball urged eagerly. 
“ I don’t believe that music or anything else 
would put you off your game,” which, if one 
studied it out, was a left-handed sort of 
compliment, though Ball meant well when 
he said it. 

“No, I don’t believe music would put me 
off,” Perry replied, musing. 

There was no reason why he should hurry 
back to America. It was the dead season in 
Washington. The President was spending 
the hot weather in the mountains of Ver¬ 
mont and the legislators were scattered to 
the four winds. Nothing could be done 
about his torpedo till fall. He might as well 
go over to Germany and enhance his repu¬ 
tation by another international victory. 

“I believe I’ll go,” he announced. 


PUTTER PERKINS 


57 


n 

As soon as news of his intention got into 
the papers — and “Putter” Perkins could 
hardly take a step now without the fact be¬ 
ing cabled to America — it roused an inter¬ 
est hardly less than his coming to England 
had done. Breitmann, the musical German, 
loomed mythically menacing in the imag¬ 
ination of the Anglo-Saxon world. Unde¬ 
feated in his own country, and barred from 
competition in other countries by the St. 
Andrews rule against music on the links, 
Anglo-Saxondom could not believe him to 
be invincible, even with the aid of his musi¬ 
cians. Now the matter was to be put to the 
test in open competition. 

The English were as excited about it as 
America. The vanquisher of their best 
amateurs and professionals must not be 
beaten by a German. 

It must be remembered that all this hap- 


PUTTER PERKINS 


58 

pened in bygone days when Germany was a 
military nation. It is difficult to conceive 
that the peaceable country which to-day is 
so industriously engaged in depreciating the 
mark, should once have felt a keen interest 
in military affairs, that it should, indeed, have 
been regarded by its neighbors as a menace 
to the peace of Europe. Well, times have 
changed, but the older of my readers can dis¬ 
tinctly remember the former state of affairs. 

With this undercurrent of hostility and 
suspicion, now so happily absent, it is no 
wonder that even in athletic contests there 
should have been a rivalry the keenness of 
which revealed the underlying temper of 
the people toward each other. 

If England and America were excited over 
the coming contest, Germany welcomed it 
with a delirious burst of national enthusiasm. 
Breitmann was the son of a trombone player 
in the Wiesbadener Kur Orchester, who 
after twenty-seven years of faithful service 


PUTTER PERKINS 


59 

was enabled to retire, rich, from the inven¬ 
tion of a patent trombone attachment for 
player pianos. 

With wealth, Ambition raised her head. 
The Breitmanns were all for taking up the 
pursuits of the idle rich. The father em¬ 
barked on an automobile. The mother 
folded her busy hands and grew fatter in 
placid contentment. The daughters took 
lessons in playing “diabolo.” And “das 
Schport ” called the son. He, who with many 
family privations had been raised to be a 
professor, took up golf. 

Ill 

For six months he practiced it with all the 
ups and downs that golfers know. Then he 
came to a momentous conclusion. Stupid 
Englander might give years of concentration 
and practice to acquire efficiency in the game. 
He would evolve perfection out of his inner 


consciousness. 


6o 


PUTTER PERKINS 


Retiring to his library, with pencil and 
diagram he worked out a perfect method. 
The essence and gist of golf was the swing. 
Were that perfect, perfect shots would result. 
The reason men did not achieve this per¬ 
fection was because, in their anxiety, they 
lost the perfect rhythm. And the remedy, 
Breitmann found, was to play golf to music, 
as one danced. Golf was an art. Artistically 
played, all its troubles would be overcome. 

The selection of the proper tunes and 
tempo for the different shots occupied him 
over a year, even with the valuable assist¬ 
ance of Professor Dammergotterung, of 
the Berlin Conservatory. In their pains¬ 
taking German way they trained a couple 
of musicians, a violinist and a trombone 
player, until these were able to render ex¬ 
actly the music required. The rest was 
easy. Taking his stance, Breitmann had 
only to size up distance, wind, and slope of 
ground, and then ask for the proper tune 


PUTTER PERKINS 


6i 


whether for wood, cleik, iron, or mashie — 
full, half, quarter, or chip. For putting he 
had been unable to find a suitable tune. 

And, preposterous as the whole thing 
appeared, he had made good at it. It was 
after a number of noted English players had 
slipped over to Germany to take a fall out of 
him, and had been beaten with consummate 
ease, that the St. Andrews Rules Committee 
had a hasty meeting and forbade music on 
. the links. 


IV 

But now Germany felt that her triumph 
was at hand. England had been pursuing 
sport for centuries. Germany had just taken 
it up. Yet already, by wedding Euterpe to 
Hercules, she had produced a golfer whom 
only the unfair St. Andrews rule prevented 
England from having to acknowledge as her 
superior on her own soil. Now if the holder 
of both the British amateur and open cham- 


62 


PUTTER PERKINS 


pionships were vanquished by Breitmann, 
under the enlightened German rules, would 
that not be proof conclusive of Teutonic 
superiority? 

Baden-Baden used to be a pleasant place 
to spend that most precious or most valueless 
of possessions, Time. It was so situated, 
climatically, that it was rarely empty, and 
in the spring and fall was very full. It was 
fuller than usual when Perry Perkins arrived 
to try conclusions with Breitmann. 

As he looked out of the window, on the 
morning after his arrival, he was charmed 
with the place, and had little anticipation of 
the trying scenes it had in store for him. 

Although advertised as the Champion¬ 
ship of the World, the tournament was 
only open to Perkins and Breitmann. The 
Deutscher Golfersbund reasoned logically 
that, since Perkins was the best in England 
or America, and Breitmann the best in 
Germany, it would be a waste of time to 


PUTTER PERKINS 63 

admit any other contestants. It was an 
unusual way to look at the matter, but the 
Golfersbund was composed of New Think¬ 
ers, not of mossbacks. 

Perry slipped down to Oos, seven minutes 
away by train, where the golf course is, to 
have a look around. The links seemed to be 
deserted, the golfers of Baden-Baden not 
being of the early-bird variety. Wandering 
about the clubhouse, Perry went into the 
dressing-room and came upon an elderly 
gentleman, stocky and square, of swarthy 
coloring, with neat little mustaches cocked 
up at the ends He was sitting on a stool, 
before a washbowl, with a towel tucked 
under his chin, scrubbing a bowlful of golf 
balls with a nailbrush. 

v 

“Can you tell me whether Mr. Cecil Bland- 
ford, the honorary secretary of the club, will 
be here this morning?” Perry asked. 


PUTTER PERKINS 


64 

'‘I believe he will,” the stranger replied, 
with a slight foreign accent, but in precise 
English. “But are you not Mr. Pootaire 
Perkins, whose face we have so often seen in 
the golfing papers this year?” 

“Yes. I have come over to see if I can 
hold my own with your musical champion.” 

“Not my champion, I assure you. May 
I introduce myself, since I have not a fame 
like yours which needs no introduction? I 
am the Chevalier Defense d’Afificher, an 
earnest though humble follower of the game 
of which you are master.” 

The chevalier rose from his seat and wiped 
his hands, and the two shook hands. 

“You were asking for Mr. Cecil Bland- 
ford,” the chevalier continued. “Do you 
know him? ” 

“No, I have never met him.” 

“You will find him a very charming 
gentleman — and a superb golfer. Ah! 
there he is coming now.” 























































.t 



PUTTER PERKINS 65 

The talented secretary of the club in¬ 
stantly recognized Perry and warmly wel¬ 
comed him to the Baden-Baden links. After 
the first words of greeting, Perry asked: 

“ Aside from this matter of music, is there 
any difference between the German and the 
St. Andrews rules?” 

“ No, they have n’t had time for more yet, 
but the whole matter has been turned over to 
Doktor Adolph Schwarmerei for revision.” 

“Who is he?” 

“He’s the celebrated author of a treatise 
on the Games of the Ancient Egyptians,” 
Blandford replied grimly. 

“He will be one of the most interested 
spectators at your match to-morrow,” the 
chevalier put in with twinkling eyes. “It 
will be the first game of golf he has ever seen. 
But the Germans feel confident that he will 
produce a set of rules of far greater philo¬ 
sophic reasonableness than those that have 
grown up haphazard in Great Britain.” 


66 


PUTTER PERKINS 


“By the time they bring in beer and pret¬ 
zels, it will become quite a gemiithlicher af¬ 
fair,” Blandford added gloomily. Himself 
an aristocrat of the game, he viewed with dis¬ 
trust any reform tending to make it easier 
for the masses, whose handicap would al¬ 
ways remain between eighteen and thirty. 

“Give me a line on Breitmann,” Perry 
said. 

“ If you defeat him, you will not be at all 
popular here,” the chevalier volunteered. 
“He has become rather an idol, and I hear 
that Emperor William is so nervous about it 
that he is either going to take up golf him¬ 
self, or forbid the officers of his army playing 
it at all.” 

“But about BreitmamTs game?” 

“Oh, his game’s all right,” Blandford ex¬ 
claimed. “No one bothers about that. 
What we all worry over is the bally trom¬ 
bone player and fiddler at his heels. Did you 
ever play on the course at Trinkomalee?” 


PUTTER PERKINS 


67 


“No. Where is Trinkomalee?” 

“It’s in Ceylon, and when you take off 
your golf shoes there, you hang ’em up on 
pegs, toes up, so that scorpions and centi¬ 
pedes shan’t nest in them. I was a bit run¬ 
down when I was there, and, whenever I 
was addressing the ball, I used to fancy I felt 
a centipede in the toe of my boot.” 

“Must have helped your game,” Perry 
laughed. 

“Well, a trombone player isn’t a centi¬ 
pede, but he seems to have somewhat the 
same effect.” 


VI 

In spite of Blandford’s warning, Perry went 
into his match with entire confidence. 
Neither the immense crowd of patriotic Ger¬ 
mans who had come to cheer on their cham¬ 
pion, nor the playful gambols overhead of 
the huge Zeppelin, “Sachsen,” made him in 
the least nervous. As for the fiddler and 


68 


PUTTER PERKINS 


the trombone player, he believed that the 
strains of their music would be soothing. 

The contest was at match play over 
thirty-six holes, and the gallery gallantly 
proposed to tramp the whole way. 

“It vill at least gif’ us a fine appeteet,” 
hopefully explained one of the spectators 
who enjoyed the pleasures of the stomach, 
though he knew little about golf. 

Breitmann won the toss, and took his 
place on the tee amid the cheers of the on¬ 
lookers, his two musicians breaking into 
slow, even music. He waggled three times 
in perfect accord with the music, then drew 
back his club-head in a beautiful, rhythmic 
full swing, without a suspicion of haste, or 
pressing, or nervousness. 

His ball sailed straight down the course, 
and landed a little to the left of the place 
where the old green used to be, before Bland- 
ford metamorphosed this first hole into a 
dog’s-leg. 


PUTTER PERKINS 69 

Unfeignedly the American admired Breit- 
mann’s style. 

“If I could play like that, I shouldn’t 
care whether I won or not,” he exclaimed. 

“And now — you vill vin?” Breitmann 
inquired, with an edge of sarcasm. 

“Oh, I ’ve got to win,” Perry replied cheer¬ 
fully. “I need it in my business.” 

He stepped on the tee, placed his ball on a 
pinch of sand, and without preliminary mo¬ 
tion struck at it. He topped it — no un¬ 
common occurrence — but stood smiling, in 
his usual attitude, with the fingers of his 
right hand pressed against the buttons of his 
waistcoat, watching the ball as it scurried 
along the ground. He watched it confidently, 
as he had done many a time before, when 
from a seeming foozle his shot had turned 
into a triumphant success. 

Hullo! Instead of leaping lightly over the 
water hazard and continuing on its way, as 
he expected it to, it plumped into it and sank. 


7 ° 


PUTTER PERKINS 


“ That’s funny,” he muttered. “I wonder 
what’s wrong.” 

Giving his driver to his caddie, he plunged 
both hands into his coat pockets as if rum¬ 
maging for another ball. 

“Putter” Perkins, the unbeaten, and till 
now unbeatable, took seven strokes for the 
first hole, an easy four. 

He took nine for the second, another four 
hole. 

On the third his ball headed straight for 
the upstanding bunker, and burrowed into 
it like a mole, so that he had to pick up. 

In fact every stroke was that of the Perry 
Perk of twenty-four handicap, who used to 
play around Medchester with half his mind 
on the wireless torpedo he was inventing. 
There was dismay among the Anglo-Saxon 
spectators; jubilation and joy among the 
Germans. They would show the world! 
Here was a man who had beaten everything 
in America and England — and their cham- 


PUTTER PERKINS 


71 

pion was making him look like thirty 
pfennigs. 

The anxiety on Perry’s face deepened 
from minute to minute, and frantically he 
clutched at his waistcoat after every shot. 
Blandford, who had not seen this character¬ 
istic gesture before, thought he was in pain. 

“ Can I send to the club for a wee drappie, 
old man?” he asked solicitously. 

Perry shook his head. ”1 believe it’s the 
accursed music,” he muttered. “It inter¬ 
feres with the vibra —” 

At the end of four holes he was four down. 

That Breitmann played golf with his head 
he had already proved by the invention of 
his musical system. His employment of 
gray matter did not end here, and to his 
knowledge that his music put his adversaries 
off their game, quite as much as it helped 
him, may without libel be ascribed the fact 
that he kept one or other of his retainers 
playing continually. 


7 * 


PUTTER PERKINS 


VII 

On the fifth hole Perry made the curious dis¬ 
covery that, although his shots went all 
wrong while the trombone was sounding, 
the strains of the violin had no adverse 
effect on them. 

The trombone player was a big lusty man, 
whose ample chest denoted immense lung 
capacity. 

“ Looks as if he could last all day,” Perry 
thought, sizing him up. Yet even a phenom¬ 
enal trombonist must take his instrument 
from his lips now and then, and these were 
the occasions Perry seized for making his 
shots. But this necessitated an exhibition of 
waggling such as man had never seen before; 
and he had to make it all appear natural, lest 
his sharp-witted adversary notice that this 
wealth of waggling coincided with the boom¬ 
ing of the trombone, and that only when 
the violin took up the strains did he give 


PUTTER PERKINS 


73 

his quick, jerky stroke and drive off his ball. 

“It iss not golf you blay so much as 
vaggle-ball,” Breitmann observed sweetly 
to him. 

“Seems as if I couldn’t stop waggling 
while that delicious music of yours keeps 
on,” Perry replied with equal sweetness. He 
hoped that the German’s patience would 
become exhausted and that he would order 
his musicians to be silent; but Breitmann 
only smiled amiably and replied: 

“Your poet say, ‘Music haf charms to 
sooth the saffage breast.’ Berhaps you haf 
a saffage breast — yes? I fear some beebles 
mitout a saffage breast haf find it not so 
bleasant.” 

While the principals in this odd match 
might display infinite patience, the gallery 
found it hard to be equally philosophic. 

“ Donnerwetter , aber dass iss a game to go 
to shleep by,” cried a florid young man in 
uniform, an Oberleutnant, who had stood 


PUTTER PERKINS 


74 

first on one foot and then on the other while 
Perry waggled, until both feet were equally 
worn out. “I haf not time in one life to 
learn such a game.” 

Many of the spectators, indeed, had 
drifted back to the clubhouse and were 
ordering cooling drinks, or giving orders 
for luncheon. Yet the increasing closeness 
of the match was holding many; for Perry, 
after his discovery on the fifth hole, not only 
managed to hold his own, but won back 
three of the holes he had lost. 

The morning round lasted four hours and 
a half, although the course is short. As they 
were finishing the eighteenth hole, Breit- 
mann uttered a jubilant cry, and Perry, 
glancing quickly at him, felt his heart sink; 
for in the triumphant look on the German’s 
face he guessed that his adversary had made 
the same discovery about the power of the 
trombone that he had made himself at the 
fifth hole. 


PUTTER PERKINS 


75 


VIII 

Luncheon was a soberly anxious meal for 
both contestants. The American was won¬ 
dering whether he should be able in the 
afternoon to elude the vigilance of the trom¬ 
bone player enough to bring off his shots. 
The German had his own cause for worry; 
for at the end of the morning round his 
two musicians had begged for a word in pri¬ 
vate. They wore long faces and a truculent 
manner. 

“ Donnerwetter, Herr Breitmann,” burst 
forth the trombonist, making himself the 
spokesman, “ve gannot geep on blaying 
for efer, like a hant-orkan. Ve gan blay a 
whole efening’s goncert — yes — mitpausen; 
but not all der dime, like dis morning. Herr 
Jel you must tink I haf a lungs of brass, as 
veil as a brass instrument. Und my frent 
here, his arms is of an achiness dey drop 
off like autumn leafs. You should haf tree 


76 PUTTER PERKINS 

trombone artists, und tree fiddle-men for 
such blayment.” 

“Ach! dat iss true!” Breitmann agreed. 
“Such a length of waggliness as dat tall 
Amerikaner haf, wass nefer seen pefore. 
But to-day iss too late to gif training to 
udder musicians. I tell you! To-day I pay 
you both tree times as much gelt — und to¬ 
day you play like tree men apiece — hey? ” 

With only the proper amount of grum¬ 
bling the musicians agreed to this, yet Breit¬ 
mann was not sure they would be able to do 
it. The son of a trombone player himself, he 
knew what a strain such an attempt was. 
If only their match could be shortened in 
some way. He racked his brains over this, 
and, before play started, innocently pro¬ 
posed to the American that, in view of the 
fact that it was already half-past three, they 
should mutually agree to limit themselves 
to three waggles before any one shot. 

“Certainly,” Perry agreed, “provided you 


PUTTER PERKINS 


77 

will also agree that your trom— that is to 
say, that your musicians will stop playing 
while I am making my shots. They can 
play as much as you like while you are 
making yours.” 

“I am sorry,” replied Breitmann, “that 
I gannot agree mit. It iss notwendig that I 
haf the music all the dime to breserve such a 
broper harmony in me.” 

“Then I cannot agree to waggle only 
three times,” Perry said. “As I told you, 
your music sort of hypnotizes me so that I 
feel as if I could go on waggling for ever.” 

“ Ach so /” Breitmann retorted in a steely 
tone. “Veil, ve vill see if der Herr Referee 
vill bermit such onlimited vaggling.” 

But the referee when appealed to said he 
could find nothing in the rules which limited 
the number of waggles allowed a player. He 
in turn appealed to Professor Schwarmerei, 
the great authority on the games of the 
Ancient Egyptians. 


PUTTER PERKINS 


78 

“ Nein, der iss not vun such rule,” the 
professor admitted. “ Aber anodder dime ve 
vill make vun such. It iss unverschammt so 
much to vaggle. Not efen de ancient Egyp¬ 
tians, who had so many more centuries of 
dime pefore dem, vould haf vaggled in such 
an extremely lengthy manner.” 

IX 

Play began, and Perry learned at once 
that the trombone was consecrated to him, 
while Breitmann made his shots as well as 
he could to the music of the violin alone. 

Luckily for the American the trombone 
is not an instrument that a man can play 
continuously, minute after minute, without 
taking breath. It became a regular game of 
hide-and-seek between them. If Perry man¬ 
aged to make his stroke when the musician 
was temporarily out of breath, it came off 
with all its old efficacy. If, on the other hand, 
the trombonist let out a blare of sound at the 


PUTTER PERKINS 


79 

instant that Perry struck the ball, the latter 
would do almost anything of which a golf 
ball is capable in the way of contrariness. 

Perry blessed his short and jerky swing, 
hardly more than a good-sized waggle itself, 
which enabled him to get off many a shot 
before the musican could guess his intention. 
A duel it was, a duel to the death. Perry 
aged under the strain of the contest; while, 
as for the trombonist, it seemed as if he 
might be carried off by an apoplectic stroke 
at any instant. 

Breitmann, also, with only the thin strains 
of the fiddle to play by, lost the wonderful 
steadiness that had characterized him in 
the morning. 

Holes were won, and holes were lost. Nei¬ 
ther was able to draw away from the other. 

At the thirteenth Perry was one up. 

The fourteenth they halved. 

The fifteenth Breitmann won. The match 
was all square, with the long sixteenth before 


80 PUTTER PERKINS 

• 

them. This hole ran beside the railroad 
track, from the extreme end of the links 
nearly back to the clubhouse. A hundred 
and forty yards from the tee an upstanding 
bunker needed a good carry for safety. 

x 

“ Ach , du lieber Himmel , how dry I am!” 
moaned the poor trombonist, as he plodded 
from the fifteenth green to the sixteenth tee. 
“ My throat haf crack, my lungs are like a 
fedder-bed, mit my tongue noddings but a 
piece of leather. If I had but one drink — 
one schoppen of beer, I tink I could blay yet 
a liddle more.” 

“Beer!” 

The word shot like the crack of a whip 
from the lips of Breitmann. He seized the 
clubs from his caddie. 

“ Bursch, you run like vun greased light¬ 
ning-bug ofer de railroad tracks to a gast- 
haus , und here bring de biggest schoppen of 


PUTTER PERKINS 81 

beer on earth. Schnelll Ach! why did I not 
methink of this sooner before?” 

The roles of the two contestants had now 
become reversed. As ardently as Breitmann 
had wished to hurry matters, so eagerly did 
he now wish for delay. While the boy dashed 
away on his errand of mercy, Breitmann 
stooped to arrange the lacings of his shoe. 
Deliberately he untied it, and then tied it 
up again. He walked on a few yards, and 
stopped to untie, and tie up, the lacings of 
the other shoe. 

The gallery looked on sympathetically — 
at least all the Teutonic part. 

11 Shall we not play the rest of the match 
to-day?” Perry asked mildly. 

u Aber his feet — haf you not observ’ — 
they do him wehl ” indignantly exclaimed 
Professor Schwarmerei. “ You do not hurry 
your vaggle — ve vill not hurry his feet.” 

After his shoes had been untied and tied 
up again in the most thorough possible man- 


82 


PUTTER PERKINS 


ner, Breitmann proceeded slowly toward 
the sixteenth tee. His eyes roved over the 
railroad tracks in the direction his caddie 
had taken. Had the boy failed to find a 
saloon? In Germany — never! Had he 
perhaps fallen and broken a leg — or spilled 
the beer? Had a too zealous police official 
arrested him for crossing the tracks, poli- 
zeilich verboten? 

Still no boy in sight. 

“My ball!” cried Breitmann. “I gannot 
find him. Vhereishe?” 

“I’ll lend you a ball,” Blandford offered. 

“No! no! I must haf my own ball.” With 
every appearance of desperate eagerness he 
sought through his pockets. “He is lost!” 
he cried tragically. “ I must vait till de boy 
he come. Berhaps he has him.” 

Perry pulled out his watch. “ If it’s a case 
of lost ball, you have five minutes to find it 
in. If you don’t find it, you lose the hole.” 

For four minutes and fifty seconds Breit- 



PUTTER PERKINS 83 

mann hunted for his ball. Then he discov¬ 
ered it in his hip pocket, where, singularly 
enough, it had not occurred to him to look 
before. 

Still no boy! 

Slowly, slowly Breitmann teed up his ball; 
re-teed it in another spot; teed it up again 
in a third. He took a piece of bee’s-wax 
from his pocket and rubbed the handle of 
his club. He breathed upon his hands. 

Ah! saved! There was the boy — yet afar 
off — but safely speeding along with two 
huge steins of foaming beer in his hands. 

A dozen waggles and the boy would be 
with them before Perkins could possibly tee 
up his ball and drive off. 

XI 

The scene on that sixteenth tee will remain 
indelibly impressed on Perry Perk’s mind: 
the large anxious crowd, gazing hopefully 
toward the running caddie with his two full 


84 PUTTER PERKINS 

steins; overhead a magnificent heron sailing 
along as majestically as an aeroplane; and 
the stout trombonist, exhausted but game, 
tooting away at his instrument for dear life. 

It was a pretty piece of timing. Breit- 
mann did not drive off his ball until the boy 
was within thirty yards of the tee. By the 
time Perry had teed up his ball and taken 
his stance, the boy was there, the boy with 
his precious burden of beer, which was to 
moisten the parched throat of the faithful 
trombonist, give new life to his leathery 
tongue, revivify his feather-bed lungs. 

Breitmann had worked out his musical 
system of playing golf in a marvelous way, 
had worked it out laboriously and thought¬ 
fully, with diagrams and rules and principles. 
In the matter of beer he had acted hastily, 
intuitively, on the spur of the moment — 
and his was not the nature to work by this 
method. Given a week, and an encyclopae¬ 
dia, and grave consultation with all the 


PUTTER PERKINS 8? 

authorities, and he might have arrived at a 
wise and proper solution. As it was he erred. 

Perry Perk, waggling despairingly on the 
tee, was surprised by a sudden sharp clang 
of brass, followed by a deep, humid silence. 
He was so startled that he could not refrain 
from glancing around. 

There lay the trombone on the ground, 
while he who had produced its brazen music 
stood with his head buried in an immense 
stein, whence issued happy gulps and gur¬ 
gles. 

He had heard the Call of the Beer! 

For an instant only did this idyllic scene 
last. Then Breitmann flew at his recreant 
trombonist, and, cursing in fluent, guttural 
German, command him instantly to return 
to his playing. 

But the trombonist, planted on powerful 
legs, minded the words and tuggings of Breit¬ 
mann not so much as he would the buzzing 
of a fly in mucilage. 


86 


PUTTER PERKINS 


Perry laughed softly. There was no need 
to hurry. When that stein pointed to the 
zenith, and not before, would that sturdy 
German descend to earth and to trombone 
playing. At present he was in heaven. 

“Seems to have a genuine thirst, does n’t 
he?” Blandford observed, as he watched 
Breitmann’s frantic efforts to separate the 
trombonist from his stein. 

“Yes, I guess part of what I took for lung 
capacity was beer capacity.” 

During that blessed interval of peace 
Perry made his shot, made it quite leisurely, 
with his putter, his face breaking into such 
a grin as it had not worn for many a day. 

Up, up, up into the air sailed his ball — 
a hundred yards it looked; and they said 
afterwards that there must have been a veri¬ 
table hurricane blowing in this upper air. 
They said the ground was very hard; they 
said that the ball must have struck a stone 
or something on landing. There even arose 



AT PRESENT HE WAS IN HEAVEN 








PUTTER PERKINS 87 

a legend, some weeks later, that a track¬ 
walker on the railroad had seen a hare 
spring out of a bunch of shrubbery, pick up 
the ball in its mouth and carry it a hundred 
yards toward the green before discovering it 
to be inedible. 

A great “ Ah /” broke from the gallery. 
“I belief he haf proceed to the green itself!” 
shrilly cried Professor Schwarmerei, moved 
beyond his patriotism by his admiration. 
“ Ach! he iss der vorld’s champion surely.” 

XII 

Maddened beyond restraint by this result 
of his musician’s dereliction, Breitmann 
caught up the trombone from the ground 
and began to belabor the big man with all 
his strength: on the head, on the back, and 
on that part reserved for punishment in 
small boys. 

The trombone suffered more than the 
trombonist. The latter only gave a great 


88 


PUTTER PERKINS 


sigh of happiness as he drained the last drop 
in the stein, and muttered dreamily, “ Aber 
dass war gut bier!" Yet, as he trudged down 
the field beside his colleague, a dull flame 
of resentment began to smolder inside that 
soggy brain. As he pondered over the blow 
he had received, and thought of his bruised 
body and outraged feelings, gradually he 
forgot his patriotism — forgot how greatly 
the pride of Germany depended on him. 

Breitmann’s wrath had cooled a little, 
and he wondered if he had gone too far. 
Apprehensively he glanced back to see if 
his musicians were following him. Yes, the 
violinist was trudging sturdily along, and 
just behind him lumbered the big figure of 
the trombonist, his stein in one hand, his 
battered trombone in the other. Breitmann 
could not read the thoughts inside that 
ponderous head; he only saw him meekly 
following, and his brow cleared. 

“He will be gut now. It iss not yet too 


PUTTER PERKINS 89 

late,” he muttered. “He needed disciplin- 
ings. I haf been too kind mit dem kerls .” 

“Come, now, blay me my musics!” he 
commanded sharply when they reached his 
ball. Yet he made only a half-hearted at¬ 
tempt to halve this sixteenth hole. His 
brassie shot lacked steadiness. Either his 
nerves had become a trifle unstrung by his 
chastisement of the trombonist — executed 
without rhythm — or the musicians them¬ 
selves, excited by the beer, may have fallen 
away from the perfect regularity they had 
attained by months of training. At any rate, 
Breitmann pulled his second far enough over 
to give himself an impossible lie, and picked 
up his ball. 

Perry Perk was one up with two to go. 
He had the honor. The trombonist, quite 
recalled to his duty, blew upon his instru¬ 
ment so diligently that Perry could not find 
the smallest pause in which to drive off un¬ 
hindered. 


9° 


PUTTER PERKINS 


He made the attempt at length, and shot 
a miserable foozled ball. 

Breitmann won the hole. 

* 

XIII 

The match was thus all square on the seven¬ 
teenth, or rather the thirty-fifth hole, and 
the power of beer still flared brightly in the 
trombonist’s chest. 

Supremely confident now, the German 
champion stood upon the final tee. Fiddler 
and trombonist were playing again in perfect 
rhythm. Breitmann swung back his club, 
and — 

An awful screech came from the trombone, 
and the ball went away in a slice that left it 
nearly as far from the green as when it had 
started. 

‘ ‘ Jesus-maria-und-ein-teilchen-von-joseph /’ ’ 
yelled Breitmann. “Vat iss den loss mit 
you?” 

The trombone player carefully turned his 
instrument upside down and examined it. 


PUTTER PERKINS 


9 1 

“It iss a dent you haf make in mein 
trombone — mit mein head/’ he announced 
blandly. 

Breitmann stared at him suspiciously. 
Was this rebellion, or was it merely the 
truth? 

“Veil, don’t haf anodder dent to-day,” 
he said menacingly. 

Perry managed to get off a fair drive 
during an instant when the trombonist 
stopped to take breath; and then the whole 
gallery trooped over to see Breitmann make 
his second shot. 

His lie was good, and his usual brassie 
would put the ball on the green. But just as 
the German champion was making his swing, 
again an awful yowl came from the trombone, 
and the insulted ball dived into a thick patch 
of reeds. 

There was no mistaking the evil intent of 
the trombonist now, and Breitmann sprang 
at him and shot out his foot in a mighty 


PUTTER PERKINS 


9 2 

kick. This time, however, no beer dis¬ 
tracted the attention of the trombonist. 
With a quick waddle he evaded the kick, 
which, spending its force on the unresisting 
air, caused Breitmann swiftly to sit down. 

The trombonist strode up to the sitting 
champion and snapped his fingers under his 
nose. 

“ I blay you no more,” he announced. “ I 
am an artist, not a golfer-making machine — 
und you haf too many habits of kicking.” 

“Und I — I haf not shpoken pefore,” 
put in the violinist; “but I am in my feel¬ 
ings mit my brudder-in-music. I make one 
sympathetic shtrike mit him. Der next 
kickings might come by mir. I go also.” 

And the two marched away to the gay 
little air of “ Ei, du lieber Augustin ” — 
played, not with the regularity which for 
months past they had been practicing, but 
mockingly, temperamentally. 

And Breitmann lost the match. 


CHAPTER V 

CHOICE OF WEAPONS 

I 

It was next day and Peregrine Perkins was 
peacefully sitting on a bench beside the 
purling waters of the tiny river Oos. The 
jubilation attendant on his victory had lasted 
well into the night before, and this morning 
he was well content to be by himself, bathed 
in the warm sunshine and in agreeable 
meditation. And his thoughts were less on 
golf than on wireless torpedoes and a girl he 
had left behind him in Medchester. He was 
also ruminating on the remarkable events 
that had occurred since the day, a year ago, 
when he, the club dub, had wagered all that 
remained of his patrimony that he could 
defeat Sharpies, a four-handicap man, by 
applying science to the game. 

Now he was ready to go back to America; 


PUTTER PERKINS 


94 

for now he felt that he had earned the 
fame which would force the American Gov¬ 
ernment to pay attention to his torpedo, 
designed for the defense of his country’s 
shores. When he had been unknown, the 
Navy Department had scorned even to in¬ 
vestigate his invention, the invention on 
which he had spent ten years of his life and 
all his money. But now that the name of 

“Putter” Perkins had become a household 

) 

word, he could desert golf and return to his 
beloved torpedo; and when that should carry 
his name higher than ever golf could — 
From torpedoes his thoughts glided to 
Claire Terhune, and there they might have 
remained for an indefinite length of time had 
no outside interruption occurred. But, while 
he had been thinking his pleasant thoughts, 
his eyes had been staring absently at a big 
German officer, with a neck like an elephant’s 
leg, and mustaches curled and stiff as a 
bull’s horns. 


PUTTER PERKINS 95 

This officer had been one of those who had 
most bitterly resented Perry’s prolonged 
waggling in his match with Breitmann, and 
his resentment still burned fiercely within 
him. As Perry’s eyes, without his realizing 
it, rested on the big man, the latter glared 
back ferociously. Of this Perry was entirely 
oblivious, and the officer became redder 
and redder in the face. Finally he sprang to 
his feet and strode over to the American. 

“Sie haben mich fixiertl” he announced. 

Perry looked up in surprise. “ Wass ist 
dass ?” he asked. 

“Sie haben mich fixiert ,” the officer re¬ 
peated truculently; then, noting by the 
American’s puzzled face that he did not 
grasp his meaning, he translated into sput¬ 
tering English: “You haf make a stare 
upon me.” 

The officer’s manner annoyed Perry. 

“ My good man,” he replied patronizingly, 
“I didn’t even know you were on earth. 


96 PUTTER PERKINS 

I was thinking of something far pleasanter 
than you.” 

“Aha! It iss more offense you say,” 
cried the German. “Your cart!” 

“My cart? What do you think I am — 
a toy-shop?” 

The officer, in deadly wrath, fumbled in 
his pocket until he found his card-case. He 
produced a card and formally presented it 
to Perry, fiercely demanding again: 

“Your cart!” 

“Oh, very well,” Perry drawled, “if you 
must have it.” And he presented his own 
card in elaborate imitation of the officer’s 
manner. 

The German took it and stalked off. 

“ I suppose he’ll have me fined for gazing 
at his mustache on the public highway,” the 
American murmured, and thought little 
more about the matter until late in the after¬ 
noon when another officer, a dapper little 
chap, called on him at his hotel, and with 


PUTTER PERKINS 


97 

punctilious ceremony requested him to ap¬ 
point some gentleman with whom he could 
confer. 

“Confer?” the American repeated. “What 
about?” 

“A duel,” the dapper little officer replied. 

“A duel?” Perry gasped. “With whom? 
And why?” 

“Mit the Herr Oberleutnant Kaffee¬ 
klatsch. Dis morgen you haf fixier a stare 
upon him. He send you a challenge. I bear 
it.” The little officer thrust out his chest 
and stood if possible straighter than before. 

Perry was flabbergasted. To be chal¬ 
lenged to a duel by a stray person upon 
whom his eyes had happened to rest in a 
public place struck him as so utterly ridic¬ 
ulous as to be beyond discussion. At this in¬ 
stant the Chevalier Defense d’Afficher hap¬ 
pened to enter the lobby. Quite a friendship 
had sprung up in the last three days be¬ 
tween the old diplomat and Perry. The 


98 PUTTER PERKINS 

chevalier had been one of the most inter¬ 
ested followers of the great match, and de¬ 
clared that Perry’s style made him hope 
even for his own game. To him the Ameri¬ 
can now turned. 


II 

“I say, chevalier, help me out with this, 
will you? This officer has come to invite me 
to fight a duel with a chap who imagines I 
‘fixiered’ him in the Lichtenthaler Allee 
this morning. What am I to do about it?” 

The little officer saluted. “If this Herr 
will act as your segond, ve gan arranche 
eferything. I vill avait him in the cafe.” 

He stalked away, his head stretched up¬ 
ward to the extremist limit of his five feet 
four. 

Perry looked after him. “Well, what do 
you think of that? A little runt like him 
coming here and insisting that I fight a duel. 
I feel more like spanking him.” 


PUTTER PERKINS 


99 


“ Just what happened this morning?” 

Perry told him. The chevalier threw 
back his head and laughed. 

“It may be mighty funny for you,” Perry 
said, nettled, “but I can tell you it’s most 
inconvenient. My boat sails on Saturday, 
and there are a lot of reasons why I want to 
get home as soon as I can. If I lose this boat 
I may n’t get another chance to sail for a 
month. They’re all filled to the brim. It 
was only by luck I got this berth on the Lusi¬ 
tania, anyway. Somebody gave it up or I 
could n’t have got it.” 

“Supposing I go out and confer with the 
little officer, and see if he won’t take a reas¬ 
onable view of this affair,” the chevalier sug¬ 
gested, rising. 

He found the little second sitting bolt up¬ 
right in his chair. He looked taller than he 
did on foot. It was his legs that were chiefly 
lacking in length. 

“Herr Leutnant,” the chevalier said, re- 


100 


PUTTER PERKINS 


turning his ceremonious salutation, ‘'this 
seems to be entirely a mistake. I assure you 
that Mr. Perkins intended no discourtesy to 
your principal. When his eyes rested upon 
him this morning with a certain intent¬ 
ness of gaze, his mind was occupied with 
thoughts quite apart from him.” 

“Berhaps mit some new ways of wag¬ 
gling,” suggested the little second sarcasti¬ 
cally. 

“It is quite possible,” the chevalier re¬ 
turned serenely. “But it is manifest he 
could not have intended ‘fixiering’ Herr 
Oberleutnant Kaffeeklatsch if his thoughts 
were engaged on waggling. I may mention 
in addition that he is very desirous of sail¬ 
ing to America next Saturday. He begged 
me to say that it would be most inconven¬ 
ient for him to stop over and fight a duel.” 

The little officer nodded. “I versteh. He 
does not desire to fight. My brincibal gif me 
instrugtions in such a case, if Herr Berkins 



< V 


PUTTER PERKINS 


101 


vill send a”— he consulted a slip of paper — 
“a abject apologizing, he need not fight.” 

“I fear me that this solution of the diffi¬ 
culty would not appeal to my principal. 
You must remember that the Anglo-Saxons 
do not regard dueling in the same light 
we Continentals do. Indeed, I remember to 
have heard one English gentleman describe 
our code as ‘all tommy rot.’” 

“It may be tommyrot — I haf not ac- 
guaint myself mit the meaning of the vord 
— aber a American man gannot go arount 
tommyrotting Sherman officers mitout gon- 
seguences. He must fight or send an apol¬ 
ogizing.” 

“ I will confer with my principal and learn 
if he desires to apologize,” the chevalier said 
grimly. 


ill 

The chevalier looked grave as he rejoined 
Perry. 


102 


PUTTER PERKINS 


“He is inexorable, that small man. He 
declares that you must fight Herr Oberleut- 
nant Kaffeeklatsch, or send him an abject 
apology.’' 

“Abject nothing!” Perry replied, begin¬ 
ning to feel vexed. “I told him I didn’t 
even know he was there. What more does 
the poor fool want?” 

“ I understand that he desires the blood of 
your heart.” 

Perry gave an exasperated laugh. “What 
an inconsiderate person! Why, I haven’t 
time to be killed. Did you explain to him 
that my boat sails on Saturday, and that all 
the others are booked up a month ahead?” 

“Every reason I gave why you did not 
wish to fight only seemed to make him more 
eager for the duel. You would not care to 
send even a moderate apology, would you?” 

“Apology be damned! I’ll slap the Ober- 
leutnant's fat face first — and then he will 
have something to challenge about/’ 


PUTTER PERKINS 


103 

“That might be a pleasant diversion, but 
it would not assist you in sailing on the Lusi¬ 
tania. May I inquire if you are an adept 
with either pistol or sword?” 

“ Never bothered with either of them. By 
Jove, if the beggar insists on this silly duel, 
I ’m going to choose torpedoes. I ’ve got a 
torpedo at home that can lick creation. 
That’s the idea!” Perry cried, warming to 
the subject. “Put us in boats a hundred 
yards apart, each with a torpedo in leash — 
give the word — and we sick ’em at each 
other. That would be some duel.” 

The chevalier twisted the top of his mus¬ 
tache. 

“It has an enticing air, certainly. I am 
afraid that — ” 

Suddenly the Frenchman sprang to his 
feet. “Will you place yourself unreservedly 
in my hands?” he demanded. 

“Why, y-e-s.” 

“It is good. I have an idea. Leave it all 


PUTTER PERKINS 


104 

to me.” And he walked rapidly away to¬ 
ward the cafe, his swarthy face in a broad 
grin. As he neared the little officer, how¬ 
ever, his smile left him. He became sol¬ 
emn. 

“Herr Leutnant,” he said, after punctili¬ 
ously bowing again, “I find that my princi¬ 
pal is not versed in the use of either pistols 
or swords. It would not be fair for him to 
have to fight under such a great disadvan¬ 
tage.” 

The little German shrugged his shoulders. 
“That is not an affair of us. He has had 
years enough to learn. Or he may send a 
groveling apologizing to Herr Oberleutnant 
Kaffeeklatsch.” 

“The latter he declines to do. And, since 
the choice of weapons lies with him, he 
chooses either torpedoes at one hundred me¬ 
ters, or golf balls at fifteen.” 

For once the little lieutenant forgot his 
dignity, and sat with his mouth wide open. 



GOLF BALLS HE DOES NOT KNOW ALSO 





































* I 


PUTTER PERKINS 


105 

“ But — but — Herr Oberleutnant Kaf¬ 
feeklatsch does not understand how to shoot 
torpedoes,” he stammered. 

The chevalier shrugged his shoulders. 
“That is not an affair of us. He has had 
years enough to learn. If he is not ac¬ 
quainted with torpedo-fighting, he should be 
very careful how he challenges an American 
to a duel. I understand Herr Perkins is such 
a skillful torpedo-fighter that he can lick 
creation.” 

“'Lick creation '—wass ist dass? Aber , 
Herr Je , it iss of a ridiculousness to fight a 
duel mit torpedoes.” 

“Or golf balls,” the chevalier interjected. 
“He is willing for you to choose which you 
wish.” 

The small lieutenant mopped his brow 
which had broken into profuse perspiration. 

“Golf-balls he does not know also,” he 
said weakly. His manner had changed con¬ 
siderably in the last few minutes. His back 


106 PUTTER PERKINS 

had lost its rigidity and he coughed in a dep¬ 
recating way. 

“Berhaps ve gan arranche,” he suggested. 
“ You assure me Herr Berkins haf not inten¬ 
tionally intend to ‘fixier’ Herr—” 

The chevalier waved away the words. 

“No!” he answered gloomily. “Between 
ourselves, Herr Leutnant, I believe he did 
intentionally intend to do it. He meant 
to‘fixier’ him through and through.” He 
lowered his voice confidentially. “To admit 
to you the truth, he is a born ‘ fixierer,’ that 
American. Of course, if Herr Oberleutnant 
Kaffeeklatsch is sincerely sorry for having 
obstructed Mr. Perkins’s view this morning, 
I may be able to persuade my principal to 
accept a groveling apologizing from your 
principal.” 

“Nefer!” cried the little lieutenant, 
springing to his feet. “Ve vill fight — mit 
golf balls. Ve Shermans are most brafe. I 
myself blay the tennis-spiel, und ve haf no 



PUTTER PERKINS 


107 

fear of any other little game-ball. To-mor¬ 
row morgen, frith, early, ve vill fight.” 

IV 

On the night before the duel the nightingales 
sang the whole night through. Perry slept 
fitfully. Every time he awoke he heard them 
and wondered how near the morning was, and 
whether the hotel clerk would remember to 
wake him up in time. At last he lost himself 
in sound and dreamless slumber until there 
came a thundering at his door. The clerk 
was faithful to his trust, and on reaching the 
lobby Perry found the Chevalier Defense 
d’Afficher already awaiting him. 

With the bag of clubs they went forth into 
the lovely dewy morning and walked beside 
the little river burbling over its foot-high- 
and-every-fifty-yards-little-dams (the Ger¬ 
man influence is plainly visible in this sen¬ 
tence) which distinguish this river from 
other little rivers; and past the frequent 


io8 


PUTTER PERKINS 


little bridges trailing their decorations of 
vines down into the water, like fine ladies 
careless of their finery. The tall trees tow¬ 
ered above them, and the green grass-blades 
sparkled with their morning diamonds. 

On past the tennis club they walked, 
where the tall umpires’ seats kept watch 
over the gleaming white lines. It was too 
early for the perambulator-pushing nursery¬ 
maid. Only the milkman with his dog-pulled 
cart was astir. He and the duelists had the 
early morning to themselves. 

Perry and the chevalier arrived first at 
the secluded spot appointed. The American 
pulled out his watch. 

“I’ve just one hour and thirteen minutes 
to duel before the train leaves. I hope they 
won’t be late.” 

They were late. Till a very early hour 
they had sat up before frequently replen¬ 
ished schoppen of beer, toasting themselves, 
Germany, and the Kaiser; drinking confu- 


PUTTER PERKINS 


109 

sion to “ Putter’’ Perkins, the Monroe Doc¬ 
trine, and America. As a consequence there 
had been difficulty in arousing them at all 
this morning, and they did not look as if 
they had heard any nightingales. 

All his original haughtiness of manner had 
returned to the little second. Formally and 
distantly he saluted the chevalier. 

“Ve haf brought a surgeon mit uns,” he 
said. “I do not know if it iss gustomary in 
golf duels. I haf ask a frent. He declare a 
caddyboy iss more right. I do not know 
vat iss a ‘caddyboy.’ Berhaps it iss some¬ 
thing like a ‘tommyrot.’ May I make in¬ 
quiries? In a duel mit little game-balls, how 
many dimes do dey shtrike the ball at each 
other? Till one is vorn out mit exhaustion — 
yes?” 

“Not at all,” the chevalier replied. 
“They keep on until one or the other is hors 
de combat .” 

The little man shrugged his shoulders 


no PUTTER PERKINS 

disdainfully. “It iss veil ve haf begun 
early.” 


v 

It was arranged that the duelists should 
drive at each other alternately. The surgeon 
prepared the lots, and the seconds drew 
them. The long straw fell to the German, 
and the bag of golf clubs was offered him for 
Selection. To his trained military eye the 
niblick appealed as the most powerful wea¬ 
pon. 

They took their places on the smooth turf 
exactly fifteen meters apart. Oberleutnant 
Kaffeeklatsch’s ball was put in place. 

He drew back the niblick for a mighty 
swipe, and with a beginner’s luck caught 
the ball perfectly and lofted it high over the 
American’s head. 

“Ah, what a strength!” the surgeon mur¬ 
mured admiringly. “Less high and the duel 
vould haf been finished alreatty.” 


PUTTER PERKINS 111 

Oberleutnant Kaffeeklatsch waved his 
hand. 

“Next dime I vill bedder know,” he mut¬ 
tered. 

It was Perry Perk’s turn. He was wear¬ 
ing his baggy old golf coat, which seemed to 
sag and bulge more than usual. 

He teed his ball very low, took his stance, 
and sighted the line to his antagonist with 
extreme care. 

Herr Oberleutnant Kaffeeklatsch faced 
his foe squarely, fearlessly, defiantly. He de¬ 
spised the hurt that any little game-ball 
might be able to inflict upon him. His head 
was erect, nose disdainful, eyes glaring, 
shoulders drawn back, chest thrust out, 
stomach a little farther out. He appeared 
solid and indestructible as the Fatherland 
itself. 

VI 

Perry grasped his putter and hit the hard¬ 
est swat of which his sinewy wrists were cap- 


112 


PUTTER PERKINS 


able. The ball flew from the tee, aimed pre¬ 
cisely at that portion of the oberleutnant’s 
form which was nearest. 

Scientists have figured out with great ex¬ 
actness that a golf ball driven two hundred 
yards must leave the tee with a force of some 
hundred tons. 

Herr Oberleutnant Kaffeeklatsch was only 
fifteen yards from the tee, and the ball hit 
him squarely in the midriff. 

The scientists are probably right. 

It all happened so swiftly and suddenly 
that the gal— that is to say, the seconds' 
breath was taken away. One instant Herr 
Oberleutnant Kaffeeklatsch stood erect and 
grand as the Niederwald Denkmal. The next 
he lay crumpled up like an autumn leaf. 

Whether the ball actually penetrated 
into his midst or not, the spectators could 
not determine, because he was folded up in 
the middle in a way which completely hid 
the ball from observation. 



ach! I AM deaded” 





























k I 


PUTTER PERKINS 


n 3 

His little second and the surgeon rushed 
up to the stricken duelist. 

“ Ach! I am deaded,” he moaned, writh¬ 
ing in agony. “It vass like a gannon-pall. 
He haf slaughter’ me.” 

Perry came up, too, while the surgeon was 
pawing over the German with quick, deft 
fingers. 

“ I say, old man, I’m sorry I put quite so 
much beef into that shot,” he said anxiously. 
‘‘I just had to catch the 8.43, so I had n’t 
any time to waste. I’m sorry if I’ve really 
hurt you. You must be a bit soft. I wish 
you’d drop me a postal and let me know 
how you get along.” 

The Oherleutnant only groaned, and it 
may be doubted whether the American’s re¬ 
quest was within the strict etiquette of the 
dueling code. The chevalier touched him 
on the arm. 

“You have exactly sixteen minutes to 
reach the station. I will take on myself the 


PUTTER PERKINS 


114 

duty of letting you know how your victim 
recovers from his first golf duel.” 

“ Thanks, old man. I can’t tell you how 
much obliged I am to you for all you have 
done for me. If you ever come to America, 
be sure to look me up. And now I must hot¬ 
foot it. I hope they have sent all my things 
down from the hotel.” 

VII 

It may be mentioned here that the Oberleut- 
nant was really rather badly hurt. The blow 
from the golf ball brought on an attack of 
peritonitis, which kept him in bed for six 
weeks, and caused his doctor to order him to 
abstain from beer the whole of this time. 
Eventually he recovered his health com¬ 
pletely, and incidentally his figure; but the 
affair was the cause of the famous order of 
the Kaiser forbidding any officer in the Ger¬ 
man army to fight a duel with other weapons 
than swords or pistols. Golf balls were con¬ 
sidered too likely to cause permanent injury. 


CHAPTER VI 

HOME AGAIN 
I 

Perry Perk was the last man to catch the 
train. On the other hand he was the first 
passenger to board the Lusitania. We will 
skip the voyage home. Perry was a poor 
sailor, and you are missing nothing that any 
lover of his kind would care to know. Let 
us pass on to the grand reception given him 
on his return by the Medchester Club. 

It was a neat idea of the reception com¬ 
mittee: a fifty-foot-high putter, in electric 
lights, to shine forth over the hills and dales 
of Medchester in honor of the man who had 
carried its name conqueringly over the whole 
golfing world. The golfers had it all their 
own way that night; the hunting men just 
trailed along behind. 

Had Perry been what in those far-off days 


n6 


PUTTER PERKINS 


was quaintly termed a “drinking man” — 
but why contemplate the awful possibilities: 
he was n’t. (A few of my older readers will 
doubtless remember a curious custom that 
used to prevail, when men forgathered joy¬ 
ously together, of imbibing certain liquids 
“to steal their brains away,” as it was tech¬ 
nically called. These liquids — the prepara¬ 
tion of which is now reckoned among the 
lost arts — had an exhilarating effect on man¬ 
kind, followed by deleterious after-effects.) 

If Perry was intoxicated this evening, it 
was with something far subtler than cham¬ 
pagne. Claire was there in a wonderful sea- 
foamy sort of dress that made her look like a 
mermaid, and you could easily imagine any 
man diving into the sea to follow her if she 
beckoned. 

II 

And she did beckon. In the Age of Chivalry 
one would have hesitated to say it, but the 
Rise and Triumph of Feminism emboldens 


PUTTER PERKINS 


117 

us, and we may say that of the two Claire 
was rather the wooer. Her color came and 
went (’t was not the sort that stayed put) as 
with almost proprietary pride she hovered 
about him. Yet, in spite of the “comither” 
in her glance, an unaccountable constraint 
possessed our hero. His timidity, his embar¬ 
rassment — whatever you choose to call it 
— did not lessen even when, along in the 
shank of the evening, he managed to convey 
Claire off to a lonesome corner of the moon- 
bathed porch, where his clubmates did the 
square thing by him. For a time, in this os¬ 
tentatiously deserted spot, he was silent, un¬ 
til under the stimulating rays of the moon he 
plucked up courage to speak. 

“There is something I have wanted to say 
to you for a long time.” 

Claire gave him a fluttering look and cast 
down her eyes. (The eyes still behave much 
as if the Rise and Triumph of Feminism 
were not.) 


n8 


PUTTER PERKINS 


“Yes,” she murmured, her slender figure 
swaying a hair’s breadth toward him. 

“I — I’m not really a golfer at all,” Perry 
blurted out desperately. 

Claire glanced up at him in surprise. Al¬ 
though the club had met to do honor to 
Perry as a golfer, she had not expected his 
words to treat of golf. 

Slowly, one would have said sadly, Perry 
went on: 

“ I think you like me — a little.” 

“Who would n’t?” she replied softly. 

“ If I were still twenty-four handicap — if 
I could n’t play golf any more than I used 
to—” 

“But you can,” she interrupted proudly. 

“Golf is an unworthy life’s pursuit for a 
man,” Perry muttered. 

“I’m afraid you’re a bit over-golfed,” 
Claire said anxiously. 

He shook his head gloomily. 

“I’m not a golfer. I’m a scientist. And 


PUTTER PERKINS 


119 

my playing is n’t golf — it’s science. I want 
to tell you about it because I — I can’t try 
to — to get you to — to like me under false 
pretenses.” 

Claire grew pale in the moonlight. The 
way Perry mixed up golf — and other things 
— was trying to a girl’s nerves. 

“Last year when Sharpies was baiting me 
about my game,” he went on earnestly, “I 
told him and the rest of the fellows that, if I 
chose to apply science to golf, I could beat 
them all at it. And I proved it. But I did n’t 
do it by muscular skill, and I did n’t do 
it just to win their money and prizes and 
championships and things. I did it because 
they would n’t look at my torpedo in Wash¬ 
ington, and I knew if I were to become golf 
champion — ” 

Perry broke off as he saw Claire’s eyes 
widen with horror. 

“ I don’t wonder you think I’m crazy, but 
listen a little longer and I will tell you all 
about it.” 


120 PUTTER PERKINS 

And he did — told her all about his fears 
for his country’s future safety, and his desire 
to defend her with his torpedo; of how his 
money was all but gone when his torpedo was 
done, and of how Washington refused even 
to look at his invention. Told of his decision 
to levy toll on his countrymen so that he 
might defend them in spite of their indiffer¬ 
ence, and of his resolve to make a name for 
himself that would force Washington to lis¬ 
ten to him. 

Claire breathed a sigh of relief when she 
became convinced that Perry really had not 
lost his wits. 

“But I don’t see what all that has to 
do with your not being a golfer!” she ex¬ 
claimed. 

“I’m coming to that. Do you happen to 
understand anything about wireless teleg¬ 
raphy?” 

“Oh, yes. You telegraph, only you don’t 
have any wires to telegraph on — just as if 



PUTTER PERKINS 


121 


— as if I combed my hair without a comb,” 
she illustrated. 

“But you could n’t do that, could you?” 
“That’s what makes it so wonderful,” she 
assented eagerly. 


in 

Out into the moonlight at the other end of 
the porch came one of the club stewards, a 
blundering fellow whose absolute willingness 
and good-nature alone kept him in a post for 
which he was eminently unfitted by nature. 
When he caught sight of Perry, he joyously 
ambled toward him. 

“A letter for you, sir,” he exclaimed with 
a wide smile. As if the only person whose 
letters could excuse an interruption on such 
a night were not already sitting beside Perry. 

“Thank you,” Perry said, and mechani¬ 
cally held out his hand. But when he saw 
the letter, he, too, turned pale in the moon¬ 
light. It was a long official-looking envelope 


122 


PUTTER PERKINS 


and the outside bore no stamp. Instead, in 
the right-hand upper corner was printed the 
notice that there was a fine of $300 for using 
the envelope for other than official business. 
Without a word of apology he tore it open. 

“Didn’t I tell you so?” he shouted. 
“They’re waking up already.” 

“Oh, what do they say?” 

Claire clutched one corner of the sheet of 
paper, Perry clung to the other, and their 
heads bent together over the letter in the 
brilliant moonshine. 

The steward did have sense enough to go 
away. (His smile was as wide as ever.) 

“ Dear Sir,” began the letter (most letters 
do). “There has recently been brought to 
my notice the important communication 
which you addressed to the Navy Depart¬ 
ment now more than a year ago. Only the 
negligence of a subordinate prevented me 
from seeing it before. I have now given care¬ 
ful consideration to your invention, as out- 


PUTTER PERKINS 


123 

lined in your letter, and that it possesses 
merits of a very distinguished order seems 
patent to me. I shall be most happy to con¬ 
fer with you further on this subject. Could 
you make it convenient to come to Washing¬ 
ton some time next week? If it would be 
agreeable to you, we could give the subject 
an informal discussion on the Chevy Chase 
links while following the rites of the ancient 
and honorable game of which we are both 
devotees — you at the top, I at the bottom. 
If this will fit in with the plans of the golfer 
whom the United States delights to claim as 
her son, it will afford me the greatest satis¬ 
faction to — ” 

Perry skipped to the signature. 

“It's from the Secretary of the Navy him¬ 
self,” he said weakly. He was fairly faint by 
the emotion caused by this recognition of 
his invention, tardy though it might be. 

“It ought to afford him satisfaction, the 
stupid thing!” Claire commented, not in the 


PUTTER PERKINS 


124 

least impressed by the signature. “Now go 
on and tell me some more” — she wrinkled 
her brows in puzzlement — “ about how your 
torpedo helped you to play golf.” 

“Why, don’t you see?” Perry explained 
eagerly; “ it was n’t an ordinary rubber-cored 
golf ball. It was a sort of miniature torpedo, 
and I carried some strong storage batteries 
in the pockets of my coat, and was able to 
control the flight of the ball much as I did 
that of my torpedo. Only being round, it 
was much harder to manage the direction: 
the distance was easy enough.” 

Perry grinned as he remembered his long 
drive at the sixteenth hole at Baden-Baden. 

“ If I could only have made the ball cigar¬ 
shaped, I could have shown them some golf. 
But I was afraid of the St. Andrews Rules 
Committee. You remember they barred the 
Schenectady putter after Travis won their 
Amateur Championship with it, and I was 
pretty certain they would n’t let me play 



PUTTER PERKINS 


12 5 

with a cigar-shaped golf-ball long. That’s 
why I used my putter so much. With it I 
could manage the direction better.” 

“Oh!” Claire exclaimed. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Perry went on 
cheerfully, “now that I have gained the ear 
of the United States Government. I shall be 
too busy installing my torpedoes to play golf 
again for a long time. When I do— ” he 
made a wry face — “I am afraid you will 
find me back in the twenty-four class again.” 

“You are not going to use your wireless 
ball any more?” Claire asked. 

“No, of course not.” 

There ensued a long pause. Perry had 
been so carried out of himself in telling 
about his torpedo that for the moment he 
had forgotten a more personal aspect of the 
case. At length he shook himself and took 
the plunge. 

“I don’t mind about the others. It was 
for a worthy end. But with you — now that 


126 


PUTTER PERKINS 


you know me as I am—” He laughed 
mirthlessly. “I used to think, when I saw 
you playing on the links and winning cham¬ 
pionships, that it was like a cat looking at a 
king for me to —” 

“But, Perry, you know I used to want 
you to — to — to look at me just as much 
when you were twenty-four handicap as 
when you were conquering the world; only 
you would n’t think about anything then 
except your old torpedo.” 

“Oh, Claire! Do you really mean it? 
Can you — Will you — ” 

“I can. I will,” she answered. 

And with the words Perry suddenly dis¬ 
covered for what purpose a beneficent Prov¬ 
idence has provided man with arms — and 
lips. 


THE END 











































































































